


As The Fuse Burns Down

by afterandalasia



Series: Disney Hunger Games [3]
Category: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), Cinderella (1950), Disney Animated Fandoms, Robin Hood (1973)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Character Death, Child Death, Crossover, Dark, District 4, Dystopia, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Parent Death, Revolutionary War, Snipers, Teen Romance, The Revolution Will Be Televised, Violence, Wartime Romance, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2017-12-20 09:17:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/885580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reaped in the 74th Hunger Games, Milo Thatch knows that his chances are slim. District Twelve has no mentors, no supporters, no hope. District Four's mysterious tribute Kida Nedakh seems a world away, but when she asks to form an allegiance with him and his district partner, he cannot begin to realise what he is becoming involved in.</p><p>He finds himself in the midst of revolution, in the midst of love, and in the midst of a world that goes beyond what he has ever expected to see.</p><p> </p><p>Coda to, or the Kida/Milo side of, <i>Ab Extra, Salus</i>.</p><p>Note May 2017: This fic is on extended hiatus, but is not abandoned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reaping

"Two for flinching," said Audrey, and punched him twice on the arm. It was supposed to be for luck, or something. She did the same thing to Vinnie, as did Nena, which was probably going to have left bruises. "See you on the other side."

Nena was safe by then, nineteen and free of the Reaping balls. It was Vinnie that they were worried about, eighteen and with a few extra tesserae slips after the last couple of harder winters. He had been joking that his new moustache was for the Capitol cameras, but none of them could really find it funny enough to laugh.

 

When Milo heard his own name called, he could only really manage a sort of dull surprise. He had never even thought about that.

 

Audrey hugged him so tightly that he could hardly manage to squeak out words to her. She must have run; she got there before any of the others did, before even his grandfather. "You better come back," she said warningly, but the words choked in her throat. "I'll kill you if you don't."

It wasn't quite funny, but he laughed anyway, and then Nena arrived out of breath to pull her in a hug that somehow managed to be tighter still. She babbled away at him so quickly that he couldn't catch a word, but it's probably something to do with fighting. She was the best fighter in the District. Milo just nodded along and tried not to panic.

When his grandfather came in, Nena and Audrey backed away, and it hit him for the first time. His grandfather clutched him and cried, and Milo's vision blurred but he wasn't sure whether it was tears or because his glasses had been knocked askew.

"We'll meet again, Milo my boy," his grandfather said. "We'll meet again on the other side."

Those words were all wrong that year.

 

The girl beside him introduced herself as Cinderella. There was a bruise on her cheek and dirt on her neck that hadn't quite been scrubbed away, and without saying a word they agreed to squeeze tightly into one chair to watch the recap of the other Reapings.

District Twelve had no Victors to mentor. Their escort Kuzco didn't even bother coming to check on them, and Milo at least was too nervous to even think of eating until he stepped into the next carriage and found a table so laden with food that he was amazed that it didn't break. His eyes went wide, and he called for Cinderella to join him.

She looked as astonished as he felt.

They didn't even bother to sit before they started eating, things which Milo had never even seen before. Strange mousse that tasted of meat, clear jelly with tiny vegetables scattered through it, bread with strange shiny pastes smeared all over the surface of it. Tastes splashed and popped in his mouth, but Milo was far more interested in getting the food into himself; he hadn't eaten in nearly twenty-four hours, and whether it came from the Capitol or not, he couldn't bring himself to turn away from food.

"Urgh, honestly..."

He looked round at the sound of disgust, and blinked in surprise at the sight of the people in the doorway. The woman was skeletally thin, skin dyed purple, with inches-long eyelashes that brushed against her forehead; the man behind her looked to be about four feet wide in the shoulders, with a chiselled jaw and a vacant expression.

"You'd think that they'd be better than this," the woman said over her shoulder, "but it never changes."

Even Milo could have wrapped his hand around her upper arm. Cinderella looked up uncertainly, but slipped another bite of food into her mouth, and another small cake-like thing into the pockets of her dress, and didn't say anything.

"Are you talking about--"

"Really, Kronk, we should be working with District Eight at least by now. Twelve! Pah!" She wrinkled her nose and skirted around them to the far side of the table, where the man produced a chair for her and then dragged up one for himself as well. His smile never changed. The woman sat down and arranged her skirts for a moment, then glanced over Cinderella and Milo before turning to look out of the windows with a sigh. "Well, we'll see what the Remake Centre can do with you, I suppose. What are your names?"

He opened his mouth to reply.

"No, don't worry about it." Another wave of her hand. "It's not like you'll last for long. Doubtless one of the other Districts will volunteer a mentor for you. Just try not to throw up on the outfits or anything ridiculous."

Milo's stomach was churning, but it was more with anger than anything else. The woman picked at her eyelashes.

"Hey, Yzma," said the man. His accent was surprisingly un-Capitol, though Milo couldn't place it anywhere. The smile hadn't wavered, though. "What are you going to dress them in?"

"Urgh, as if there's anything interesting to do with coal. Dust, dirt and darkness, that's all I can see. Just put them in plain black jumpsuits and give them pickaxes, that's worked before."

Worked for _what_ , Milo neither knew nor asked. All that he could do is stare, open-mouthed, at the pair of them.

"Sounds brilliant!" The man enthused. Did she call him Kronk? Milo couldn't remember ever having seen him before, although he had very faint memories of a purple-skinned woman among the designers. "You're a genius, Yzma."

The pair insulted them for a while longer, then left as abruptly as they appeared. With no sign of their mentor Kuzco, Cinderella and Milo were left alone as darkness gathered around the train. When they found an empty room, they locked the door behind them and took the spare blankets out of the cupboard to cover the bed with.

 

 

By the time that he got spat out of the Remake Centre, he didn't even have his glasses any more. The rest of it he didn't care about - the scrubbing of his skin, whatever it was that they spread on his chin and ripped off again, even having the rest of his clothes taken away since they were given back again afterwards - but it felt wrong not to have his glasses. His eyes still felt sore and he had to fight the urge to squint, but more than that, the glasses had been a present from his grandfather.

He had the strangest urge to go and ask for them back. But then Kronk appeared and manhandled him back to face Yzma again, and the opportunity was altogether lost.

 

 

The Capitol residents had just given up caring by the time that District Twelve appeared. It probably wouldn't have mattered if they had been dressed in something better (District Three glittered in lights; District Four had green ribbons like seaweed in their hair and trailing fins), and it probably wouldn't have mattered even if Cinderella hadn't dropped her pickaxe just as the procession was starting, and Milo hadn't thrown his out of the chariot in solidarity. They gripped each other's hands tightly as the chariot rolled over crushed flowers and broken glass stones, and though there was the occasional cheer it was nothing like the all-encompassing screaming that they had heard when the other Districts went out.

When President Yensid spoke, his voice was so magnified that it seemed to shake the very ground on which they stood. There really had been an element of a _game_ to it until that moment, travelling and eating food and wearing strange clothes, or at least those things had made it a bit easier to put aside the fact that they had been sent here to die.

That was all that ever happened in District Twelve, after all. They died, and the Capitol did not even pretend to mourn.

 

 

"Your grandfather is a good man," said Cinderella that evening, taking him by surprise as they sat rubbing the last smudges of black paint off their cheeks in their abandoned quarters. She looked even younger with the bruise on her cheek gone and her hair now loose, but with something sad in her eyes even compared to many of the people that Milo has met in District Twelve.

"You know him from school?" Of course, everyone knew everyone in District Twelve, but not always enough to make comments like that. "He usually only teaches the older years..."

She nodded. "And the special classes, for those who want to take the Capitol exams." She sat back into her chair and hugged her knees up to her chest, setting her chin on them. "My father saved, so that I could take them, but after he died my stepmother wouldn't let me. Your grandfather let me sit in all the same, at least until my stepmother found out."

"That sounds like him," Milo admitted with a laugh, then swallowed it again as it sounded too loud in the room. "I'm... sorry about your father. He was a good man as well. When the mine..." There had been many accidents in the mine, but people only ever talked as if there here one: the one that they had lost someone in. He knew that he was no different. "The accident. He was there all night, trying to save people. He did save people."

He never asked what injuries his parents had, would never know now. They might have been something that could have been healed with Capitol technology, Capitol medicine, or they might never have been. He just wishes that it would have been possible to try. Even after Cinderella's mother died, leaving him to work alone, her father had done his best for the people of the District. The family that had taken over didn't have half the dedication.

Neither of them managed to speak again before Kuzco threw open the door to their room and stormed in, throwing a beaded, golden coat into the middle of the floor. "Urgh! I hope that they've managed to at least fix the television this year! Last year it kept dropping out right in the middle of things!"

He dropped down in the centre of the long couch, right between the two of them, and put his heels on the low table in front of it. His sandals were gold as well, with little jangly bits on. The remote had been sitting unattended on the table, but Kuzco now snatched it up and started trying to flick through things. The screen fuzzed and popped, sound coming out-of-sync with the words and people's faces turning purple even when they probably weren't supposed to.

"Honestly!" Kuzco declared.

Cinderella looked close to angry, but Milo frowned at the television for a moment, then got to his feet. "Hang on," he said. "Mr. Ramirez showed me how to do some things... well, he was showing Audrey, but I was watching as well..."

He carefully levered the television away from the wall and cracked open the back of it. It was a mess of wires and boards, and he grimaced at the sight before managing to follow some of the lines back and forth. One of the boards had come loose from the clips supposed to hold it in place, and was pulling a couple of the wires away. He pushed it all back into place, then stepped back to check the screen has cleared up.

Kuzco actually looked surprised. It made him in turn look human, which Milo would have appreciated at any other time. " _Where_ did you learn to do that?"

"Mr. Ramirez -- my friend Audrey's father -- he repairs the televisions in the District. Some of them are quite old. He's been teaching Audrey how to fix them, not a real apprenticeship since she's his daughter but just unofficially, and sometimes I go with them. It's interesting."

For a moment longer, Kuzco stared, then broke out laughing and slapped his thigh. "You District folk! You are just so adorable!"

They'd been called worse that day. Milo accepted it.


	2. Training

Training made it far more real than he wanted it to be. Kuzco just pointed them vaguely in the direction of the elevator and continued reading his novel, a large mug of hot chocolate in one hand. The lowest button had 'Training Centre' written on it, which Milo couldn't help but comment might be something of a clue. The lift stopped on the second floor, and for a moment he thought that he might have managed to do something wrong, but then the door slid open to reveal two of the other tributes. The boy was huge, chisel-jawed and with the sort of arrogant smile that Milo was only used to seeing on visiting Capitol bureaucrats who commented snidely on the state of the school and pretended that neither his grandfather nor Mr. Whitmore -- the principal -- were worth a moment of their time. The girl, blonde plait dangling over her shoulder, stepped right up close to him and cocked her hip in his direction as she entered the elevator.

"Hello. You're District Twelve, right?"

"Yurp." His voice appeared to be breaking all over again.

She gave him a carnivorous smile. "Nice to have met you."

He sidled out from behind her and stood closer to Cinderella instead. He wasn't used to _that_ sort of hungry look, even if the laughter in her eyes said that she didn't mean it. The Games were intimidating enough without having to deal with this.

 

 

The training hall was enormous, bigger than any of the buildings in District Twelve, enough to make Milo feel positively dwarfed. Most of the other tributes were already present, some of them standing confidently, others looking as nervous as he felt, in a rough semi-circle at the centre of the room. He and Cinderella joined them, and he tried not to look too closely at the shining swords or the huge weights around the room.

The woman at the centre of the group had an air of authority, despite her youthful look and the long golden-blonde curls of her hair. She walked back and forth a few paces with careless grace, counting them, then pursed her lips.

"Twenty-three. Whose District partner is not here yet?"

There wasn't time for an answer before the lift doors opened again, and Milo turned without thinking to see the girl there. Only his brain wanted to say _woman_ , not girl, because she held herself with so much confidence and was dressed differently from the tributes, in some blue skirt and top that stood brightly against her dark skin and white hair. He recognised her from the Reapings, but could not remember her name.

"Thank you for joining us," the head trainer said tartly. "Now, if you would allow me to continue."

The newcomer had tattoos that make little ticks under her left eye, and a grimness in her expression. They were engrossing, at least until Milo realised that what the trainer was saying was going to be important, and dragged his attention back there instead. It was probably desperation, grasping at chances like that, but somehow he couldn't stop himself from doing it.

 

 

They started off on edible plants, where Milo soon realised that he was hopelessly outclassed. Cinderella not only identified every plant but offered the medicinal uses of many of them; the trainer looked more than a little surprised even after she explained that her parents were apothecaries.

It felt like a waste of her time staying there, even if Milo managed to 'survive' the selection of plants in front of him only by erring on the side of caution. Before too long, he suggested that they move on, even if Cinderella looked surprised and the trainer a little disappointed.

"Where did you want to go next?" He asked as they got to their feet. Neither of them had even asked the other before they had started going around the training points together. "The edible insects?"

"I don't know them as well," she said in a tone of agreement, her eyes scanning the area. Many of the tributes were using or learning to use weapons, and Milo's gut twisted at the thought. Then Cinderella's hand snuck into and squeezed his, and her voice became smaller. Perhaps she had the weapons too. "But... could we try camouflage, please?"

"Of course." Who knew? Maybe it would save them for a little while longer.

 

 

It turned out to be surprisingly interesting. Within a few minutes of talking to them, the camouflage trainer seemed to decide that they want to learn instead of copy, and went back to 'the core principles'. Mimesis and crypsis, disruptive patterns and countershading, even 'self-decoration'. ("Not that hiding under some branches is particularly skilled camouflage," the trainer said with a slight wrinkle of her nose, "but if it's a choice between that or nothing, do it.") Milo volunteered himself as the canvas and they tried painting patterns on his left arm, the trainer suggesting how to use the tones to break up the lines.

They painted their way up Milo's arm, moving from disruptive patterns to Milo had actually expected -- attempting to do patterns like grass or bushes. The trainer was just reminding them about seasonal variations when she looked up, voice slowing, and Milo turned to look just as the girl from District Four approached them.

"Is there room for one more?" Her eyes flickered between Cinderella and Milo before settling on the trainer.

The trainer nodded. "Of course! Sit down, sit down, people are free to come and go as they please. We were just working on patterns, but I was about to start on countershading. That's-"

"Why fish have dark backs and silver bellies, yes?"

"Of course!" The trainer laughed. "District Four, yes, you would know that." He turned to Milo and Cinderella, who had been watching dumbly. "That's above-below countershading. You also get side countershading, which is, well, for things viewed from the side."

She demonstrated on one of the large sheets of fabric spread out on the table, first in grey and then in green-brown, then invited them to do the same. The girl from District Four commented dryly that she had something of an advantage with the latter, and the trainer -- dark-skinned herself, with tight curls of black hair -- laughed.

"I, ah, don't think that we've been properly introduced," said Milo, as Cinderella offered her arm for painting on in turn. "My name's Milo. Milo Thatch."

He went to shake her hand, then realised that he was proferring her a paintbrush and went to stammer an apology. The girl just chuckled and gently shook his hand around it instead. "Kida."

"Oh!" Eyes widening, Milo realised exactly who she was -- and why she had looked so familiar. "Kidagakash! From four years ago!"

Her hand fell away from his, and her eyes turned away for a moment before she recovered herself and smiled wryly. "I prefer Kida. And what is your name?"

"Cinderella Tremaine." The younger girl looked cautious, and reached up to rub her cheek slowly. "You volunteered to come here."

Milo could see why, when that was said. Most of those who volunteered were Careers, and most of them were... a little off, to say the least. Occasionally you got someone who volunteered not in principal, but because they cared about the person who had been Reaped, and they seemed more, well, _normal_. But there was such a risk of death he could hardly understand why anyone would do it, except to save someone else.

But Kida nodded. "I did. In District Four, we like to see the hope in things, you could say. It's always worth holding on to, right? In District Twelve like anywhere else?"

"Yes," said Cinderella. "I suppose so."

She still didn't look too convinced, but seemed to relax a little and continued working on the painting she was doing on her arm. Milo cleared his throat, before offering: "District Four's pretty far south of here. You must be missing the heat, huh?"

Kida smiled. He liked it a lot more than her more serious expressions. "Well, yes, though I think that might be the air conditioning so far. I miss the food more. They didn't have a single fish on the table this morning."

"I'm surprised you could tell. I didn't recognise a lot of it," he replied. It earnt him another laugh. "Wish I could send some of it home, though, to my grandfather. And my friends." He could imagine Audrey's unimpressed expression at some of what he had eaten this morning, Vinnie's jokes that if you burnt everything enough then it all tasted the same anyway.

With a toss of her hair, Kida looked out across the others in the room, but Milo did not follow her gaze. He could imagine too well what he would see. Instead he found himself looking closely at Kida's hairline, at first surprised that it was real then, a moment later, remembering that she was from a District as well and few District-dwellers copied the Capitol habit of changing their hair unnaturally. There weren't too many people in District Twelve who lived to have white hair, and he'd never seen it on one so young.

"I think my grandfather would appreciate the fish more," said Kida. He remembered that, now, seeing the coverage one year when the mandatory viewing was on but there was nothing 'exciting' enough for the Capitol to show, a five-minute piece on the girl from District Four who had lost her mother to the Games, yet wanted to go back in. Maybe it was about fighting her own demons; if so, he could almost understand, though it was still taking it to an extreme he could not fathom. Kida herself had appeared on screen, just for a ten-second sound-byte saying that she would be back for the Games one day.

It was a struggle to think that the girl who had been turned into a story already by the Capitol was the same one that was sitting in front of him. As he looked on, wordless, Kida propped her foot up on a spare chair and started putting broad sweeps of paint up and down it.

"What do you think?" She cocked her head at him, lips curving into a smile. "Would it look better with some flowers?"

"Definitely," he heard himself reply, before even thinking about it, and then all three of them were laughing. "Some nice red roses all the way up."

Cinderella leant over from her chair, catching him by surprise as she dabbed paint onto his cheek. "I can do pansies," she offered, and he tried to suppress his laughter to allow her to do so. From the next station along, the boy from District One was looking at them disapprovingly over the tray of insects in front of him, but Milo couldn't really bring himself to care. Somehow, out of nowhere and as Kida also leant over to draw yellow poppies on his other arm, he realised he was somewhere close to having fun. At least, he found, it made it easier to talk as well: about District Twelve and District Four, evening work and the differences in their schools. It surprised him to hear that they had Mockingjays as far south as District Four, when Kida started painting one on her thigh and he recognised it, then went red as Kida looked from him to her thigh and back again. She and Cinderella shared an almost conspiratorial look, and then the awkwardness passed again and, somehow, they were just able to talk.

Talk, and paint, and then eat lunch together and be grateful that they could recognise the fruit and bread and slices of plain meat put in front of them. It was only part way through that Cinderella pointed out that Milo still had a stripe of paint up the bridge of his nose.

 

 

Towards the end of their lunch, Kida excused herself and disappeared, but even when the afternoon training sessions started she did not return. Milo looked around for her for a while, but there was no sign, and with a frown he had to accept that she had just... gone. He hadn't even thought that skipping training would be an option.

Thoughts of weapons were getting harder to ignore. Some of the other tributes, at least, had moved away from them, and only the boy from District Eight and the girl from District Eleven were at the knives.

"We should look at them," said Milo to Cinderella. "At least once. We need to know...something about them, at least." He went to adjust his glasses, but they weren't there anymore."

She didn't reply, just nodded.

 

 

The knife felt dirty, too hot for his hand. But he forced himself to learn how to hold it anyway, to defend himself against the gentle attacks the trainer showed him. His arm jarred when he caught the blows on the hilt of the short blade he was given, and he had red marks where he had been struck with the blunted weapon the trainer held, and it just felt _wrong_.

He still wasn't sure how the tributes could do this, year after year. Some didn't, of course, just ran, or stood rooted to the spot on their circles until they were killed. But so many _did_. Maybe it was just different, when it came to it and fighting was the only choice that you had if you wanted to stay alive.

He had to wash his hands when the training session was done. He just couldn't bring himself to do anything else.

 

 

Kuzco was gone from their floor of the building by the time that they arrived, and it was dark and silent. Frowning, Milo looked around until he found the controls for the lights, and pressed a few buttons until he managed to get the lights working and plain white rather than some other garish hue.

He didn't reappear, even when the door opened and someone bought in dinner for them. They were a young woman, with freckles on her pale brown skin and wide, wary eyes, maybe not much older than Milo.

"What's your name?" Cinderella said. She took one of the two trays which the girl was carrying, using both hands to hold it. The girl shook her head, shying away a step. "Please?"

Wincing, Milo stepped forward and put his hand on Cinderella's shoulder. "She's an Avox," he murmured. The girl looked more relieved than embarrassed when he said it, even if Milo looked round in confusion. "She can't speak."

Cinderella bit her lip. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she said to the girl, who bowed her head and stepped around them to put the tray on the table. It was laden with rolls and large pitchers of fruit juices. Cinderella looked round to Milo, who shrugged, and they let the girl bring in another pair of trays before leaving them in silence.

"I've heard about Avoxes," said Cinderella as they sat down at the table. "I just... didn't think that I'd actually meet one."

"Me neither," Milo sighed, and grabbed one of the rolls of bread. It was speckled-green, District Four, and just made him think of Kida and how she had disappeared on them.

 

 

The second day, neither of them bought up the subject of weapons again, and they made their way around various of the survival stations instead. Despite Milo almost tying himself up while they were trying to make a tent, it didn't go too badly, and the time went faster as they spoke about the extra classes his grandfather ran back at the school for the Capitol examinations.

"Everyone still says that you should have passed," said Cinderella, as they worked on tying knots and basic snares. "Even when I was studying. I mean, you're smart enough to help with some of the classes for the younger ones, everyone knows you'll be a teacher one day."

"I didn't want to pass them," Milo blurted out, and even the trainer looked at him in surprise. The Capitol examinations were a chance to be educated at a boarding school in the Capitol, to get a job which gave you a chance in life and would let you go to another District. "So I did badly."

Cinderella seemed to be thinking the same thing. "Why?"

"You just... disappear off to the school." He tried again to tie a butterfly bend, but the two ropes slid apart. "I didn't want to leave my grandfather behind. I figured I'd rather stay with him instead."

She nodded, and looked down into her lap. "I get that. I just thought that... it might have been a way out."

He didn't say what their way out would have to be now.

 

 

As lunchtime rolled around again, Kida walked past them, and for a moment her hand brushed against Milo's back. Before he could react, however, she was gone again, walking to the far side of the room. He frowned, but let her go. Something itched behind his shoulder blades, but he figured that it was just the unfamiliar clothes, and wriggled his shoulders until it slipped away.

"I think she's talking to District Seven," said Cinderella, still looking.

Milo's head snapped round, and he saw that Kida was indeed talking to the two tributes from District Seven. The girl was looking animated, gesturing with her hand, while the boy talked more shyly and avoided making eye contact.

"Well, her partner's with the other Careers. Maybe she's trying to find someone else instead."

The District Four boy, along with both District Two tributes, the girl from One and the boy from Six, were sitting close to the buffet table and closely watching anyone who walked close by them. Milo had felt their gazes when he walked past the first time, and had no particular desire to do it again.

"Good luck to her, then," he said quietly, and found that he meant it.

 

 

He didn't find the note until later that evening, when he chased the itch into the small of his back and fished out a neatly folded square of paper. There were a few books on their floor, and he tucked the paper between the pages, figuring that if Kida had slipped it down his back it was not meant to be seen.

_To Milo Thatch and Cinderella Tremaine of District Twelve,_

_As you may have guessed, I will not be part of the Career pack. I do not care for their methods, nor for their aims._

_I wish to make an alliance with you -- with both of you. You are smart and capable, and I like that far more than the desire to kill._

_If you will work with me, I would be glad of it._

_Kida Nedakh of District Four_

He read the note three times, and still wasn't sure what to make of it. But he folded it away and decided to talk to Cinderella as soon as he could.

 

 

They didn't see anyone for the rest of that evening, and had gone to their separate rooms when Milo heard the door slam against the wall and a string of obscenities follow it. He jumped, hands rising as if to defend himself from something, then he gently opened the door a crack and peered out into the main room.

The lights were on, blue-green and almost painful on his eyes. Yzma and Kuzco were standing in the middle of the room, barely feet apart and shouting and gesticulating at each other viciously.

"-stuck up bitch-"

"-filthy yokel bastard-"

Their words blurred into each other, and Milo watched with a frown, leaning against the frame of the door. Suddenly, with an inhuman screech, Yzma launched herself at Kuzco, hands outstretched like claws, and Kuzco screamed as they cut into his skin. He struck back at her, then something flashed metallic in the light and he jumped back, slamming the door behind him.

The fighting continued for a while longer, then he heard the door open again and the stomping of Peacekeeper boots.

"You there! Put down the knife!"

He slid slowly down the door and put his head in his hands. There wasn't even anything that he could do.

The rustling of the paper in his trouser pocket managed to break through the clouds of terror fogging his brain, and he pulled it out again to look at it, though it was too dark to read the words. Kida, the girl from District Four, a _Career_ , wanted an alliance with them. He still didn't know why, but he wanted to trust her, more desperately than he wanted anything other than to go home.

 

 

The next morning, there was blood on the carpet, and Peacekeepers standing at the doors. When Milo went to step out of his bedroom, a white-suited man stepped up and towered over him.

"Stay in your room until it is time for training," he snapped. Seeing the blood patterns behind him, Milo conceded, and withdrew.

District Twelve. Always cursed, it seemed.

 

 

"I want to take you up on your offer," Milo blurted, as soon as he managed to find Kida. She looked round, expression unreadable, from where she was sitting with a partially-woven net draped across her lap. She must have been working on it the previous day. "Allies."

Cinderella trotted across the room; he hadn't even been paying attention when he strode off towards the flash of white hair and blue fabric. His hands were shaking, but Kida smiled at him.

"I'm glad to hear it."

"Hear what?" Brow furrowed, Cinderella caught up. They were attracting attention from some of the other tributes.

Kida looked to her, tilting her head, then back to Milo again for a moment. "I offered to make an alliance with District Twelve. I meant it for both of you."

"Sorry." Milo flinched. "With what hap... it doesn't matter." He shook the thought away as he saw the question on her face, and rubbed the back of his hand. "But I want to work with you. If you'll still have us."

There was a long, tense moment, then Kida smiled and rose to her feet, grabbing his hand and clasping it tightly in both of hers. Tired and shaken, Milo could not help but feel overwhelmed by her presence, her tight grip on him. There was an almost fanatical look in her eyes. "Yes," she said, breathily. "I definitely still wish to be allies with you."

 

 

Milo was surprised, and almost a little disappointed, to find out that Kida had also agreed to ally with both of the District Seven tributes -- Esmeralda and Quasimodo, she called them, their names rolling in her accent. She added that she wished for Ping of District One to join her, no less, since he had apparently refused the Career Pack.

It was still so abstract, so _unreal_ , talking about packs and alliances and not thinking about the deaths which they were meant to prevent or cause. He still couldn't get the knack of half of the knots, either, even when Kida reached across and helped him.

"You spoke about your friend, who works with the televisions," she said, demonstrating one of the knots and then gesturing for him to copy. The trainer was concentrating on teaching Cinderella instead.

"Audrey? Well, it's her father, really." The knot stayed, and he felt a swell of pride that matched the smile on Kida's face. "And he does more than just the televisions. He's really good with electronics and mechanical things -- does a bit of both." The Ramirezes didn't look like merchie folk -- they were darker-skinned, darker-haired, with old family traditions and words of another language passed down -- but they had done well for themselves and were respected. "He's teaching Audrey, but I've picked some up."

Her eyes were almost boring into him, and he couldn't quite look up into them. "So you are good with wires?"

He nodded, one of the pieces of rope now in his mouth as he tried to do another of the snares.

"Then I think... that I have an idea."

 

 

Though Kida went to talk to Ping, he must have rejected her. Milo could see it in the set of her mouth and the way that she twisted the fishhook and string tightly around her fingers. With a few terse words, she excused herself, and went over to the weapons stations at last. He looked away, but not quickly enough to avoid seeing her pick up a spear and swing it like an extension of her body.

"Is there anywhere else that you want to go, quickly?" He said to Cinderella. She had a net woven with various snares in front of her, and looked as if she would be able to catch just about anything with it. "We've got a bit of time left before lunch."

"Fires," she said, with a determined nod. "I'm good at setting fires, but I'm used to having matches."

"I'm used to boilers," he admitted. "And wrenches. Most things around the school need hitting to get them to work." He paused, and then they both started stifling laughter. "Er... well... oh, you know what I mean."

 

 

Much like the parade, all of the interest was gone by the time that Milo entered the room. He wasn't even sure how he was supposed to show these people that he had a chance, how he could show them some way of... of what? Of killing? Of surviving? All that he had was his mind, knowledge stored safely away.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he began, "and I thank..."

One of them looked him over, a bored expression on his face, then turned back to talk to the woman next to him.

Milo gritted his teeth, hands balling into fists at his side. "Your Games are wrong," he burst out, voice ringing in the empty room. "They are wrong, and I will not die for them." He felt as if he should have a weapon to brandish at them, or at least something more than his rattling anger. "One day they will be destroyed, and you will be cast down. And maybe it will be sooner than you think."

(It would not be until later, much later, that he realised that it must have looked like a threat.)

 

 

He got a three, one of the lowest scores of the year, but it probably didn't matter with no-one to look for sponsors for them. The floor might have been cleaned, but none of their supposed team appeared to talk to them again that night.

 

 

A knock on the door the next morning made Milo start awake, then stumble to peer through the glass. For a beat, he didn't recognise the man outside, then his brain caught up and pointed out that the District One stylist was standing outside the floor. He opened the door as quickly as he could manage and then stood and stared rather stupidly at the two people on the doorstep.

Behind him, Cinderella's door creaked open. "Milo? What's happening?"

The man smiled. "My name is Wei, but you might know that already." Tall, thin and dressed in blue and gold, he didn't seem at all fazed by the fact that Milo was still wearing yesterday's clothes and had his hair sticking in all directions. "News has travelled that District Twelve no longer has a stylist, and I thought that I would offer my services."

Milo looked bewildered.

He wasn't even sure whether it helped when the woman standing next to Wei spoke. She was perhaps in her fifties, with auburn hair just lightening at the temples and lines on her forehead and at the corner of her eyes. "My name is Athena. Since District Twelve doesn't have a mentor," her voice softened a little, "one of the other Districts usually helps. This year, I asked to do so."

"I should probably let you in," he said finally, stepping back. Wei swept in, the motion made all the more disconcerting by the fact that he was wearing some sort of long robe which covered his feet. Behind him, Athena paused for a moment to smile at Milo and pat him on the shoulder, then closed the door and guided him into the room.

She turned to Cinderella as well. "Come on out, my dear."

Cinderella did so, but still looked cautious. She was wearing a long blue nightgown, so much too big that she had been able to tuck her knees up underneath it, with white flowers embroidered at the hem. "Why are you helping us?"

There was a sadness in Athena's eyes. "I've been very lucky over the years; several of my girls have won their Games. I would hope that I have contributed to that."

"You're Kida's mentor," said Milo. His mouth suddenly felt dry.

"Not that she wants that much help."

Somehow, that didn't surprise him. He went to adjust his glasses, only to brush his nose again. That was getting _annoying_. "Then you're sure about this?"

A smile and a nod was all of the answer that he needed. Could things finally be changing?

 

 

Wei took some measurements and then excused himself, saying that he would see what he would do for clothes. Athena sat with both of them to talk about the interviews and coax some answers out of them that might make them look good to the audience. Cinderella was sweet and genuine, with the occasional comment that had just enough bite to be funny. Athena looked at Milo for a long time before calling him 'adorable'.

Perfect.

 

 

The interviews were always painful to watch, back in District Twelve, but the Peacekeepers were on the streets to make sure that you watched them and the televisions turned on without the need for a touch. Tampering with them was illegal. And that was when the interviews were even at night; most years they were in the afternoons, after work or school, in public places so that there was never a way to escape them.

Milo's heart seemed to pound in his ears, so loudly that he could not even hear what the tributes were saying in their interviews. The dull roaring noise of the crowd only made it worse. He was on the end of the back row, with Cinderella on one side and the stairs on the other, and even with only three minutes for each and one minute left for each changeover, he was still starting to go numb in the legs before they were half way through.

Three minutes was only enough for a snapshot of each. District One: Maleficent Le Fay, controlled and dangerous, and Fa Ping, charming and gentlemanly. District Two: Helga Sinclair, the blonde girl from the elevator, with a sexuality that was disturbing for him to see, and Lyle Rourke, gravelly and dominant. District Three: sharp-tongue Amelia Smollet, whom Milo liked a little more when she asked Snow White why exactly they were discussing outfits on such an occasion, and Jim Hawkins who slumped upright in his chair and answered in short, non-committal sentences.

His head was beginning to whirl by the time that Kida rose from her seat, the screens above her head declaring her full name of Kidagakash Nedakh, and made her way down to meet Snow White. She was wearing a long blue-grey dress, cut away at the upper arms, trimmed in gold around her face. It made her look like an adult, perhaps more so than Snow White in her fluttering golden-yellow skirt and sparkling tattoos.

"Kidagakash!" Snow White trilled. "It is so good to finally meet you."

Kida looked at her steadily for a moment, then nodded and gave the slightest smile. "It has been four years in the making," she acknowledged.

This time, Milo found that he actually wanted to watch, even to listen, as Kida spoke. Her answers bordered on the elusive, but had their own direction, as if she was drawing Snow White along some conversation which she had already planned out. Of course, Snow White tried to linger on the sense of eagerness, on her volunteering. But Milo saw Kida flinch, just slightly, when the old footage replayed on the screens of her spitting in the face of Alana Nayut who volunteered for, and went on to win, the 70th Games.

She twisted away from the words, though, and there was an edge in her voice as she used the word _sacrifice_ to describe what she was willing to do. It made Snow White pause and blink, although in the two hours or so of footage it would doubtless be lost on the crowd. Then the conversation twisted away again, tracing over her mother's unfortunate death in the 57th Games, her father's accidental death at sea. Milo could see the tightness of Kida's jaw, the shine in her eyes, but she did not react beyond the loss of her smile and the lowering of her voice. The microphones picked up every word anyway.

"You know," Kida said finally, "they have a saying in District Four. _Ab Extra, Salus_."

Her voice rolled over the words, but Milo's hands were tightening into fists, his eyes going wide. He knew that language, though he did not know those words, and that it was forbidden to speak any language other than that which the Capitol taught. It was so long since they had other languages, they had even lost the name for theirs. The one which Kida had spoken was the only one allowed still, left for scientific names and titles for friends of the president. It was still dangerous for people to use it so normally.

Snow White, to do her credit, did not flinch, "And what does that mean?" she asked eagerly.

The buzzer went off before Kida could answer, and there were screams of shock and delight from the audience at the showmanship.

Kida smiled. "It seems I will have to tell you later."

She spoke as if she knew that she would be the one to survive. It made Milo want to smile and to turn away at the same time, just from the reminder that he was just about certain to die.

 

 

By the time it got to Milo's interview, he was already exhausted, and could hardly even remember Athena's attempts to get him to speak less like he was talking to a classroom and more like the audience are adults. It didn't help that Snow White's questions didn't seem to be the most insightful of things.

Cinderella looked unbearably pretty in the silver dress that Wei had managed to create for her, and he was glad of that. Too often, the District Twelve tributes looked like fools from the beginning. He was relieved, as well, that he was simply wearing a black suit, with glossy touches and tiny gold threads that gave just a touch of light to it.

"The others may not have realised it," Wei had said, as he had done the bow tie for Milo. Milo had itched to do it himself, as his grandfather had shown him. "But coal can be quite fascinating to look at. There are many perspectives in the world."

Perhaps it was the heat, the blinding lights, or the constant screaming of the crowds that were making his head throb so badly. Despite the new clarity of his sight, he found himself squinting, and had to fight to smile as Snow White summoned him down to the front.

"Milo!" said Snow White, shaking his hand. "Welcome!"

"Thank you." He nodded along, then glanced to the audience. "And thank you all for coming today," he blurted.

That wasn't planned. Through the laughter of the crowds, Milo felt himself redden, and anything which he was supposed to say fled his mind.

He decided that he hated public speaking already.

 

 

He didn't sleep that night, looking out of the window. It looked like the city didn't either, and the bright lights and garish colours seeped into the sky so that he could not see the stars. Even the moon seemed to have been dimmed.

On the back of his district token, a picture of him sitting on his grandfather's knee, he wrote a letter to the man that raised him. Perhaps it would get back to him in the coming days or weeks.

 

 

The knock at the door the next morning was another surprise. Once again, he did not recognise the woman outside, and opened it with a frown.

"My name is Lü Yong," she said, without prompting, "from District One."

She walked in past him, and Milo, half asleep, had to step back out of the way. She was older than most of the other Career mentors that he had seen, certainly far older than the other mentor from District One, with a lot of white in her hair and the shadows of frowns marked deeply around her eyes and mouth. The name rang a bell, but he couldn't place it.

"I'm here to help this morning, as you still haven't been given new mentors," she added.

She worked with sharp efficiency, but did not smile, as she handed them bundles of clothes and gestured for them to dress before escorting them up to the roof to get onto the hovercraft. The tracker hurt as it slid beneath his skin, foreign and too-hot.

As they sat down, in their numbered seats, he remembered the name. Lü Khan had been one of the last year's tributes, the final one to die at the hands of the victor. A boy called Eugene from District Eleven. Apparently he had reinvented himself as Flynn Rider in the Capitol, or something like that. It made Milo feel almost feverish with anger at the realisation that they had bought his mother back to mentor again, a year after her son's death. His vision went narrow, tunnel-like, and his hands clenched on his knees.

The anger was so strong that he almost didn't notice when Kida came onto the hovercraft, the last to enter again, and brushed against him on the way through. He grabbed the slip of paper automatically, however, clenching his fist tightly around it. Looking to the side, he saw her slip another one to Esmeralda on the other side, almost too quickly to see and without even turning her head. As the hovercraft took off, he slipped it into his pocket beside the photo of his grandfather.

 

 

Even the Careers didn't speak during the hovercraft flight. He wondered whether this is one of the ones that they brought the bodies back in.

Perhaps it didn't even matter. In a few hours, they would start dying anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The name of Lü Yǒng -- Khan's mother -- comes from Mother Lü, female leader of a peasant rebellion during the Han dynasty. Yǒng is a Chinese given name meaning 'brave'. Though it is typically a male given name, I felt it appropriate, and supposed that Panem is set so far in the future that such traditions are starting to slip.


	3. Running

Going into the Arena on the platform was like heading towards the light at the end of the tunnel, and though it wasn't at all funny Milo found himself having to stop from laughing. Perhaps it was just the fear. Well, as much as 'just' could be applied to the stomach-knotting, sweat-inducing, mouth-drying terror threatening to overwhelm him.

 _Just_ fear. As if that wasn't one of the biggest dangers of the Games all by itself.

 

 

He glanced at the paper Kida had passed him as in the moments before he reached ground level. It was folded a couple of times, but on the outside simply said: _Get Cinderella and get some distance. Come back once the cannons stop firing._

"One step at a time, Milo," he said to himself, as the sixty seconds started to tick down. They looked like they were in some sort of city, but not flashy and clean like the Capitol. Dead, decaying.

Maybe that was just supposed to be atmospheric.

The supposedly-random arrangement of tributes had managed to put him on the far side of the semi-circle from Cinderella, almost at opposite ends. Only the boy from District Eight was outside him. Milo was still trying to settle on a positive way of thinking about that when the timer ticked closer to zero, and a flash of movement turned into Pocahontas jumping; he flinched away from an explosion that came too late to catch her. A sharp noise cut across everything.

The siren. That was time to run. Several of the others were already moving before Milo remembered that he was supposed to do the same, and he started running across the open area straight towards Cinderella. She had run close enough to grab one of the bags and was looking up, fear and determination on her face, only to see Milo and frown at him in confusion.

He ran straight to her, grabbed her arm, and kept running. "Let's go!" She gave a bit of a squeak, but it was cut off by a scream behind them.

Then Cinderella started tugging him along instead.

She bolted straight for one of the two deep cut-away sides of the arena, but Milo glanced over his shoulder to see that they weren't the only ones heading for it. "Come on," he said, tugging Cinderella's hand off to the side. "This way!"

Black rectangles, old entrances to the... stands? He thought that was the word... surrounded them. He picked one a few to the left and aimed for it as best he could.

"Do you have a plan?" Cinderella said.

"Sort of."

It wasn't _quite_ a lie. He had a plan written on a piece of paper and tucked into his pocket, even if he hadn't read it yet. And he was fairly sure, or at least fairly hopeful, that there weren't going to be horrible mutts set into every door around the stadium. Although that would be very _entertaining_ , no doubt.

He hit the entrance to one running, just about managed not to fall on his face as he fell down the stairs, and whirled to make sure that no-one was following them.

"So," said Cinderella, still holding the green bag in one hand. She peered out towards the Cornucopia, where there was just one tight knot of fighting now. He saw a flash of white, realised that Kida was at the centre of it, and felt his chest tighten. "What was that plan?"

Plan. Right. Milo fumbled for the paper and unfolded it, but had to read the words a couple of times before they really sunk in.

"We're going to blow up the Cornucopia."

 

Kida whistled as the cannons finished going off, and warily Milo and Cinderella stepped out to join her. Esmeralda and Quasimodo came from the other side of the stadium, looking grim but unscathed, and to his surprise Fa Ping from District One was already standing there as well. He had blood on the staff which he carried, and on his hands.

He was only a year younger than Milo. But that didn't stop Milo from being more than a little frightened of him.

 

 

His hands shook with every mine that they dug around so that he could mess with the wires inside, and it wasn't the heat which made sweat roll down the back of his neck. He jumped violently when Kida laid a hand on his shoulder as he was working on the mine at the farthest edge of the ring, close to where he had been standing.

"Leave that one," she said quietly. "Separate it from the others if you can. Just in case we need it."

"Do you want me to decrease the sensitivity?" He managed. Kida's hair swung around her face, and she had changed out of the regulation clothes which they had all been wearing. A pendant swung around her neck, glittering as blue as her eyes.

Kida looked at the dug pit in which he was kneeling, then nodded. Quasimodo and Ping were with the others, sharing supplies and looking over weapons. Her hand felt warm on his shoulder and he wanted to know why the hell she had picked them to surround herself with. "Yes."

"I'll wire the others for the chain reaction," Milo said. "And leave this one, if I can."

"Thank you." She squeezed his shoulder and flashed him a smile. "I'll get a pack for you."

 

 

As the stadium settled into rubble, he wondered whether he had miscalculated just what would happen when he put all of those mines together.

Especially since he didn't even know what the explosives were.

Vinnie would probably have been better at this - he was learning to set the charges in the mines, to collapse exact amounts of rock and break down exact areas of wall. But at least they were outside the stadium, alive, and all in one piece.

"That was bigger than I expected," he said simply. 

Esmeralda stifled a laugh, and brushed some grit out of her hair. "Nice understatement."

 

 

Kida and Ping seemed to quickly take charge, and Milo let himself fade into the background again as they discussed the Arena and chose what they considered a suitable place to settle for the night. Tucked under the rocky overhang, he heard the anthem, and tucked his knees up tighter to his chest.

Quasimodo started towards the lip, where Ping stood with Cinderella just at his side, then stopped and drew back again. "Weird, isn't it?" said Milo. "Just a few hours ago..."

"Yeah," Quasimodo replied. "I don't want to see their faces again, I think."

Quasimodo had been the one to carry aside the bodies, so that the hovercraft could pick them up. The machines had descended not long afterwards.

"You didn't kill them," Milo said, too quickly. He knew that he was reassuring himself as well.

A shrug, a shadow in the growing darkness. "Does it matter now?"

He wanted to say that it had to, but the words caught on his tongue.

 

 

Somehow, the tiredness and the ache in his muscles managed to override his fear, and he managed to find a corner of the rubble flat enough to lay a tarp over and doze off into sleep. At least, he thought he slept; it was hard to tell whether the darkness and running and flashes of blue eyes were dreams or just thoughts that were taking too clear a form. A sound like a thunderclap cut through, waking him for an instant, and as he drifted off again it was with the seeping knowledge that it was the sound of another death.

He was woken by a hand on his shoulder, and went to push them away more out of panic than anything else. It took a moment for him to realise that it was Kida, already stepping back out of range of a blow, but with her movement all sharp edges. "Get up," she said. She didn't have to speak loudly in the hollow of the shelter, but... was that water? "We need to get out."

Splashing to his feet, he grabbed the tarp he had been sitting on, then looked down at the water now swirling around his feet. His pants were soaked, and now that he knew about it, it was getting cold. They splashed their way out, and Milo had the terrifying moment of knowing that his life was entirely in Ping's hands as the younger boy lashed off a rope and helped them up, one by one. The water was waist-deep by the time that Kida pushed him towards the rope, and he could feel the fear getting deeper, but it was hardly the time to go shouting that he couldn't swim.

Hands wrapped around his wrists as he neared the top, and then he was safe. Quasimodo followed, and then only Kida was left; the water lapped around her chest, swallowing her up into darkness, and he could see her fighting and leaning against it. Then there was a crash, more like a falling building than like any sound he had ever heard water make, and a wave that was almost solid roared around the culvert and slammed into her.

"Kida!" _No_ , she had chosen them and led them and talked to them like people and--

Ping threw himself in to grab her. It happened in an instant, but it felt like an eternity, and Milo put all his weight behind the rope until Quasimodo heaved and pulled all of them back from the edge as well as Ping and Kida out from the water.

They lay slumped on the edge, both coughing off water, and he ran in to help Kida to her feet. She looked surprised, more than anything else, and a small part of him wondered whether it just wasn't the Career way to want to save someone. Whether it was even possible to pick children and train out all desire to help from them. Kida looked at Ping in amazement, then turned to Milo, hair plastered in her face and streaked with muck.

"Thank you," she murmured, and he wasn't sure who it was for. He let go of her arm again, and stepped back as she clearly collected herself, wiping off her face and stepping further away from the culvert. "We need to find shelter again. Somewhere protected."

There was still shock written on her face, but none of the rest of them could manage anything else. He could see that, feel it in the air, the chilly fear of them all. Apart from Ping, like a firebrand, getting up raring for a fight and acting like a Career through and through.

Milo really wanted to dislike the boy, at least in that moment. Wanting to start a fight meant wanting to kill, wanting to murder other children just to get home. No, Milo couldn't think of his life as that important, couldn't tally himself against twenty-three others. But there was something earnest in Ping's eyes, something desperate in his body language, and under it all Milo knew that he was just a sixteen year old kid in the same bad situation as the rest of them, but that he'd been raised with it hanging closer over his head than any.

So Ping left, and none of them said anything, but Kida's expression was pained as she turned back to them and just said, softly, "Let's go."

 

 

They continued around the curve of the Arena, but pulled away from the culvert and into the shadow of the buildings instead. The moon made everything ghostly, like an old photograph, but it was enough to see by. As they walked, Kida pulled a hooded dark jacket out of her pack to cover up her hair, and kept her spear in her hand otherwise.

Another half-collapsed building; Milo wasn't sure why it would be any different from the others, but Kida chose it and, with Quasimodo's help, they shifted the rocks a bit to make it more sheltered, almost cave-like. Cinderella and Milo shared one worried look; the mines weighed on them both, but he guessed that this was hardly the time. Kida stepped in first, tapped the walls and ceiling experimentally, then looked round to them. "It'll hold. Do you want it for a shelter?"

"Well, we in Twelve aren't above-ground folk," said Cinderella, and strode in like she hadn't a care in the world. Kida smiled fondly at her, and the others trailed in one by one. Milo couldn't help being last, remembering being five years old and knowing how his parents had died, buried beneath rubble and rock. He swallowed it back and walked in tentatively, crossing to what looked like the sturdiest wall and putting his pack down next to it.

They were all dripping wet, and filthy, but none of them suggested a fire. Not after what Ping had said about drawing the Careers out with one. The night was getting cold, but not freezing, and Milo wouldn't have thought that it was too bad were it not for the shivers that he saw Kida trying to suppress. Four was the most southerly district, of course, with Seven in the far north with the pine and Twelve out on what remained inhabited of the east. His grandfather had told him once that Twelve was lucky to be able to do things like display a map of Panem in each of the classrooms at the school, showing how Four and Ten got to keep some coastlines, and how close the districts really were to each other even though it seemed like the borderlands between them put them worlds apart. Some Districts couldn't even do that, he said.

He walked over to Kida, where she stood at the exit watching, always watching, the Arena. "Are you okay?" he said quietly.

She looked over her shoulder with a wry smile. "I'm alive. That's ahead of the Game in here."

The tone in her voice was barely there; he could hardly be sure that he'd heard it at all. But it made him feel just a little nervous. "I bet there's a lot of people out there wondering why you chose us." The words came out before he could stop them. They were stupid, he realised with an internal wince, or to be more accurate they were based on just enough thinking to count as clever, and therefore not anything that you would want to say in front of the Capitol cameras.

"Maybe I like underdogs," Kida replied, then punched him lightly on the arm. "Or maybe I think you're cute."

He _knew_ that she was joking, but it didn't stop him from going red, trying to reply and stammering instead.

"All of you, obviously," she offered, giving him just enough chance to collect himself. She hugged her jacket close with one arm, but ground the base of her spear into the gritty concrete of the floor. "Maybe I'm just hoping that this year will be different."

"What do we do now, then?"

"We wait and see." She had barely spoken the words when another cannon went off, and she flinched. He'd never seen a Career act like that before. Her voice was lower when she added: "And we survive."

 

 

They shared food, and though at first they could barely find words, it did not take long for them to find themselves joking and talking about themselves, as if they were just a normal group of people. Esmeralda lived with her uncle, Clopin Trouillefou, worked mostly with delimbing trees in the winter, and had yet to find music that she couldn't dance to. Quasimodo already worked hauling some of the larger logs and keeping the donkeys and mules used, but he wanted to be a carver, though high-quality wood-working was usually left to District One. Cinderella talked about her parents and how she hoped to be an apothecary herself one day, maybe even train as a doctor if she'd been able to sit and pass the Capitol exams, and went off on a momentary aside to say that she should clean the graze on Kida's face, just in case. There was some laughter, but Kida allowed her to do it, as Milo talked about his grandfather and what it was like to have myths and legends for bedtime stories, and how much he missed the food back home.

"You know my story," said Kida, when they looked at her expectantly. "There's no more to say."

"That doesn't say who _you_ are, though," said Quasimodo, and perhaps it was his earnestly that made Kida look surprised. "I mean, it's only four years, but it's only really one day, and it doesn't tell us whether you like to swim or what your favourite food is or..." he seemed to catch himself, and coloured fit to clash with his hair. "Or anything."

"I do like swimming," she conceded, slowly smiling. "There's this place back home, just on the east coast, where if you hold your breath for long enough and dive right down there are buildings under the water. Almost like this," a wave of her hand, "but full of fish and seaweed, so that they look like they're growing, not decaying. The water's shallowed, so you get the light filtering down, but the waves break it up like blue firelight. The fish are getting rarer now than they used to be, more scared, but they're still there."

Her voice turned wistful, and Milo couldn't help but see her as younger, then and as she started talking about a time when she had been about six years old and had scared herself witless tangling with what must have been a young eel, up in the northern reaches where she had lived with her grandfather for a time before they had gained permission to move further south. Apparently some of her fellow children must have thought that it was a real devil coming out of the sea, clutching a still-wriggling eel and strung with seaweed.

"Maybe that was where the name started," she said, voice fading, and the liveliness was gone.

Esmeralda looked at her carefully for a moment, then gave a shrug that was just too careless. "I've been to the sea once, when I was on the team moving the wood by river and a storm stopped us from getting it. There was some good wood there, nothing we could afford to waste, and most of it had managed to lodge on the beach. We had to go wading out to get some of them, though, where it was on a... they called it a sandbank. Out in the sea itself, at low tide, you could almost see it beneath the water."

"What was it like?" said Cinderella.

Esmeralda looked her dead in the eye. "Cold." It should have been as funny as it was, but they started laughing again anyway, perhaps just to be free of the darkness that seemed to still gather too closely around them without even a fire to chase it away.

 

 

They stayed there for the rest of the night, and Milo probably didn't manage to hide his relief when the dawn broke. It was easier to joke in the light of day, about how bad the breakfast was, and they had just grown serious enough to talk about getting more water when another cannon cut through the air. Everyone froze for an instant, though there was no way of telling how close it was, until Kida broke the silence.

"I will go get that water."

"I'll come with you," Milo said impulsively, and though she raised her eyebrows at him she nodded.

They left the water bottles behind, but took the large collapsable container that had been in one of the packs, and left almost everything else behind "to prove that we aren't running off", as Kida put it. She even left her spear there, leaning close to the entrance like a guard, carrying only a couple of knives at her hip instead. Milo took one as well, although he wasn't sure what he could do with it other than prepare dinner, and they headed to the nearest point of the culvert.

"So," Kida said, as they knelt down and lowered the container into the water. It would probably hold thirty or forty litres when it was full, plenty for all of them for a few days, but it would be easier for two people to carry than one and impossible to move in a hurry. "You trust me not to kill you out here."

She spoke so calmly that he almost dropped his end, and looked up sharply to see her smiling. It was a little colder, though, not reaching her eyes. "I... well, you didn't..."

"Didn't kill any of you before," she said. This time he didn't understand her tone. "And none of you -- or Ping -- left me to die either."

"Hey, how do you know I didn't lure you out here to kill you?" He tried to make it into a joke, but he knew immediately that it was off. She chuckled anyway, and they hauled the container out and shuffled around to hold it stably between them.

Her gaze met his again. "Maybe I trust you."

It had been many years since a District Twelve tribute had killed anyone, but somehow he felt as if that wasn't the only reason that she was saying the words. Or perhaps that was just being hopeful. Milo's thoughts were interrupted as he almost tripped over a large rock and they fought to steady the water container before, finally, hauling it all the way back to their little shelter.

 

 

That night he made himself watch the Capitol anthem, but still had to look away part way through the procession of faces in the sky. Cinderella told him that it made eleven altogether, and he realised that the five of them here were almost half that were left. Only once, during the following day, did Quasimodo raise a question of them moving on, but Kida explained that she thought it was safest here for now, but that perhaps it would be good to start keeping watches. The Careers would be hunting now, actively, and Ping was out there as well. Though she added the words "for now" and that still made it feel uncomfortable.

The next day, they received two silver parachutes, the first with a reel of clear fishing wire that made Kida grin and the second full of still-warm bread, butter and honey, enough that they split it up and dived in immediately, not even stopping to discuss why District Four would be dropping food for all of them rather than waiting and saving it just for Kida. District Four never wanted for sponsors, and this was still early in the Games when even the annual District Twelve collection would have been able to send something in, but it was still generous.

They used the fishing wire to rig traps in some of the nearby narrow points, attaching it to pieces of metal that the slightest touch would set jangling. Kida found a few bent nails and used them to make fishing lines, scraps of bright fabric fluttering until they disappeared under the water. They didn't turn anything up, however, and it was more dried meat and flatbreads for dinner.

Three days; not bad for District Twelve, and definitely not bad for both of them to have made it. Usually they were in mourning by now.

 

 

It was the afternoon of the fourth day when one of their lines jangled. Everyone immediately froze from what they had been doing, Kida's hand going to her staff, and she motioned for them to back as far away from the entrance of the room as they could.

 _"Nice going, Rourke,"_ came a female voice from outside. The District Two girl; Milo recognised her voice. _"Just tell them that you're coming."_

"Get your things," Kida said, as low as she could to still have them hear. They heard the sound of a sword, and then a whole clang of metal, a line obviously cut down. They all moved quickly, putting food and now-dry clothes back into their packs, rolling up tarps and wincing with every slight rustle that they made. Milo looked towards the large container, still half-full of water, but Esmeralda caught his eye and shook her head. If they had to leave, that would have to stay as well.

 _"There's disturbed ground here,"_ said another voice, female again. _"People have been in this area."_

Oh lord, what if one of them could track? Milo drew his knife in a shaking hand. He caught the sound of a rock knocked aside, just on the back of the building that they were in, and he ducked down automatically though there was no window in that wall. Kida's head whipped round at the noise, and she gestured for them to come to the door, frantically.

"Head back to the stadium," Milo heard her tell Esmeralda in an undertone. The Seven girl nodded, hand touching the throwing knives across her chest. "Don't fight unless you have to. Use time against them."

She gestured for them to leave, along the lines of the buildings, and Esmeralda and Quasimodo did so. Cinderella followed them, hesitating for just a moment to look at Milo before diving into the shelter of the next pile of rubble, but Milo paused to look at Kida. There was a set to her eyes, and she held her spear tightly as she pressed her pack into his hands. It was very light, no water to weigh it down. 

"I will meet you there," she said, as if it was a promise.

"What are you going to do?"

He tried to reach for her hand, but she pulled it away and stepped back. "Buy that time," she replied.

"There!" came a shout, and a crossbow bolt slammed into the wall just next to Kida's head. 

They both flinched, and then she pushed Milo away with a command of, "Go!" which he could not possibly have disobeyed. He ran in the direction that Esmeralda had gone, dodging aside as she stepped out for a moment with a discus in her hand. She flung it with a snap of her wrist, and he heard the impact on flesh behind him but did not look back.

"Come on, you fools!" Kida said, and metal clanged on metal. Thunder rumbled again; it had been easy to ignore it in the safety of their shelter, but now it was loud and all-too-present.

But she had told them all to run, and run they did, back towards the shattered bones of the stadium. They reached it, ducked just inside one of the black doorways, and looked around at each other half-desperately.

"Was there a next part to this plan?" said Milo.

"Not dying?" Quasimodo suggested. "I don't think we got that far."

The thunder overhead seemed louder than ever, the sky darkening rapidly until the shelter of the doorway started feeling like it was too deep in darkness.

 

 

It took too long, though it was probably only minutes. Milo realised that he was still holding Kida's pack, and that it had gone quiet outside. He fervently hoped that there hadn't been a cannon hidden under the sound of the thunder.

Footsteps sounded outside, and they whirled to face the entrance, raising their knives. Quasimodo picked up a large chunk of stone in his other hand, knuckles turning white with tension. It would have been easy for someone to see them running past, he realised, and to have decided that they would make easy targets.

"Stay back, Cinderella," Milo said quietly. She looked at him with a touch of surprise, knife just as ready in her hand as anyone else's.

But it was Kida who came into view, still gripping her spear, dust and blood in her hair and her other arm cradled to her chest. She slowed as she came into sight of them, down to a jog, glancing up at the sky with concern in her face.

"Are you all right?" said Esmeralda, bolting out a few steps.

Kida shook away the proferred arm, moving quickly undercover before she leant against the wall and put her spear aside. "Taking on four tributes is not a good idea," she said flatly, to some nervous chuckles. "But it should not be serious. Come on, we should-"

"Wait... is that rain?"

As soon as Milo was sure of the sound, he had to ask. It had a dull thudding sound to it, not quite like normal rain, but of course he had never really paid attention to the sound of rain in an Arena before. It was more pattering than the thunder, at least at first, but began to build in depth under it seemed like a slow-motion explosion rumbling around.

"Sounds more like hail," Esmeralda offered.

The rain reached the doorway in front of them then, thick splats that darkened the ground and turned the dust into mud. With a sigh of relief, Milo went to step out into it, but Kida threw out her arm and caught him across the chest.

There was a smear of blood on her forehead. "Are the Gamemakers ever to be trusted?"

She took a deep breath; Milo frowned, then sniffed, and realised that there was a slightly acrid smell to the air. Kida put her spear out into the rain, so that a few drops fell onto it, at least as thick as spit or snot on the metal diamond.

She whipped the spear round again, making Milo flinch back, then raised her other hand to touch the liquid with one finger. There was a cut on the back of her hand, and he almost asked about it, when she drew her finger back with a hiss and started shaking it.

"What is it?" The others crowded forward, but it was Cinderella who spoke. 

Kida spat onto her finger again, without putting it too near to her mouth. It was starting to look red. "I don't know. Some sort of acid, maybe. Let's find somewhere safe, and I'll check the medkit. It would probably be best to put something on this."

"What _is_ this place?" said Quasimodo as they retreated into the stadium. "Not the arena, I mean, but..."

"It's an old stadium," said Milo. "Probably athletics, to judge by the shape of it, or mixed-sport. In the old times they used to have sports events here, in front of crowds."

"How appropriate," said Kida dryly. One of the walls had partially caved in, revealing the remains of a room beyond and leaving large piles of rocks across the floor. The rain was already starting to trickle down the floor, and looking into the room Milo could see puddles forming in there as well. "These rocks should do. The ceiling is sound, and we should just need to be off the floor. If anything else happens, we can act then."

 

 

Milo wished that there was more of a plan than that, but he could see the way that Kida looked about occasionally, sharply, at something that might have been a cannon or could have just been another rumble of thunder. Screaming suddenly filled the air, and they all started, but a gesture from Kida held them still even as the screams seemed to echo down the corridor around them.

It was death, that was all. The sounds of death, and Milo felt sick just from the sound of it.

Finally it stopped, and the canon went off. It didn't make it any better, though, not when the mist started rolling in.

Milo was already getting to his feet. "Well, there's no way that's good."

"You're learning," said Kida. "Let's get up those stairs."

There were stairs at the far end of the corridor from where the mist was now creeping in, cracked in places but still relatively intact. The rain was running down them, but they were the only way out of the mist, and all five of them hurried up, pausing on the landing for as long as they could before the mist pushed them further on.

Another cannon punctuated the rain, and this time Milo was standing so close to Kida that he felt her flinch. She murmured something that he could not hear, and this time she did not flinch when he touched her arm. "What is it?"

"It was not supposed to be like this," she said quietly. "This is going too quickly."

What could he even say to that? The Capitol only bothered putting them into the Arena in order to watch them die, after all, and half of the time Milo found himself pitying the tributes for having their suffering drawn out so badly. Not that he had actually managed to give up his own hope, however, compared to how easy it was to despair for those on the screen every year.

Before he could even manage to think of anything, though, Kida looked round to the corridor again. "It's still rising. We have to go higher up."

He was really going to have to actually manage a reply before the Gamemakers finally killed them. Milo shook his head, but followed, as they started up the stairs once again.


	4. Bleeding

Another cannon went off just as they reached the top of the stairs. Milo still gripped his knife, as they walked carefully out onto the steps and turned to survey the stadium. There were other figures, indistinct shadows in the rain: two by the fallen side, and one almost directly across from them, hunched.

"Is that Fa Ping?" Milo squinted across the distance.

"I think so," Kida replied.

Cinderella stepped up between them. "We should help him."

A troubled expression flickered across Kida's face, then she shook her head. "It's too dangerous," she said quietly. "Not just this rain. We don't know whether he would attack us or not."

There was a great smear of red on the set of steps closest to Ping, and a dark shape slumped at the top of it. That would explain one of the cannons. Milo could only envisage Ping jumping into the flooding culvert to save Kida, and wondered how that was only a couple of days ago.

Trumpets cut through the air, and Snow White made her announcement: one more of them must die. She said it so casually that it made Milo want to be sick, and he heard a gasp from Esmeralda.

"She wants to break up this pack," said Kida. Her voice was dark, and her eyes stayed fixed on the clouds even as Snow White's image faded away. "We aren't doing what they want us to do."

"Do... do you want to? Split up?" Quasimodo looked pained. He hitched the pack over his shoulder and seemed to shrink into himself.

But Kida's eyes flew wide. "No! It is not just a case of not playing their Game. It is..." She waved one hand, searching for words. "It is _being_."

Milo felt like he understood, though finding words for it would have been difficult. Something about solidarity, and something about humanity, probably would have featured. He reached to touch her shoulder, and she flinched at first, then saw that it was him and gave a slight, sad smile. "Then what shall we do instead?"

"Stick together," said Kida. "Let them cancel their Feast, if need be. We have supplies, and now that there are fewer people the violence should st-"

Screaming. Always screaming. Kida turned with fire in her eyes, but somehow Milo knew that it was already too late.

 

 

It wasn't just the death that made him scream his anger at Rourke, made him lunge forward even as hands grabbed him to hold him back. It was Rourke's laughter in the wake of it.

Milo was not the only one who went to move. Esmeralda was the one restraining him, but Kida was fighting to stop Quasimodo from going after Rourke there and then. Quasimodo's face was flushed with anger, his great muscles cording beneath his skin, and he was growling, _"One rock. Just one rock."_

"Quasimodo," Kida was saying, her voice desperate as she clung to his arm and tried to turn his face towards her. Quasimodo's sheer strength meant that he could lift her from the ground, but as he tried to push her aside she did _something_ to his wrist, a small tight move, and he stumbled back a step with a yelp. "You are not a killer. Do you hear me? _You are not a killer._ "

It must have been the ferocity in her voice that stopped him. He stared at her, and her expression turned to desperation.

"Do not let him turn you into one. Do not let _them_ ," she made a vague gesture towards the sky, where Snow White's face had been, "turn you into one."

"Who _are_ you?" Quasimodo said, and Kida stroked his cheek with an uncertain expression, her lip trembling slightly.

"That is a good question," she replied.

 

 

"She-Devil!" Rourke's voice carried through the still air, his hands cupped around his mouth. "Hiding out, down there? I like the meat shield you've got going."

"Ignore him," said Kida through gritted teeth, turning her back to his silhouetted figure. "Let's move."

"What do you say to a little duel, She-Devil? For control of the stadium?"

She kept walking, along the row and then back down the steps that lead underground. There was a sharp sound in the air, and suddenly Milo's world was cut through with pain; he clutched at his shoulder with a cry, and looked at surprise at the bloody gouge made in it. Blood was running down his arm, and he could see chunky shapes in his flesh.

"Rourke!" Kida shouted, whirling on him in fury as he laughed again. She paused for a moment, breathing deeply, and hefted the spear in her hand as if she was honestly considering throwing it. Then with a snarl, she turned back and hustled them down the stairs again. She hooked her arm around Milo and pulled him with her as the pain started to numb his thoughts and all that he could see was the blood on his hand.

"The room that we saw, downstairs," Kida said. The words sounded... fuzzy. "Quasimodo, can you make the gap big enough for us to get through? Cinderella, we're going to need that medicine you're carrying."

 

 

The hole that Quasimodo made was only just big enough for them to get through, and he and Kida agreed to move the stones again afterwards so that they could not be seen from the outside. The puddles on the ground were gone, but Kida threw down a tarp before getting Milo to sit down, having to support him as he did so. He turned his head to look at the wound again, but his muscles seemed to cramp.

"That's going to be hard to tourniquet," said Cinderella. She was already rifling through her bag, setting out... things. Some of them were white. The world was starting to spin by that point. "Put pressure on it as best you can. We need... ah."

There was something in his throat that made him feel as if he was going to throw up. Cinderella sluiced something over his arm that burned, and Kida still had one hand above the wound, pressing down hard over the end of his collarbone.

"Oh got, we've got setting agent," Cinderella said. "If the wound is clean enough..."

"The arrow ripped, not cut," Kida replied.

"It's the best chance."

Something cold filled up the wound, not exactly soothing but numbing, then he felt stabs of pain again as Cinderella pressed the edges of his skin. "Shit, that hurts..."

"Shh," said Esmeralda, frantically. He looked up to see her backing away from the gap left in the rocks, and gesturing for the others to stay quiet. "District Two."

They fell quiet, Milo fighting to keep his breathing calm. He made the mistake of shifting his arm slightly, and pain shot down it; gulping, he tried to see through the pain, and in a blink Kida was holding his face in her hands, murmuring something that he could not make out. The worst of it passed within a few breaths.

Rattling gravel made them all freeze, and Esmeralda lifted her eyes up towards the sky, lips moving silently. One of the small rocks in the doorway tumbled down. Please no, please let them not have found...

"Nothing." They could hear the disgust in Rourke's voice. "They aren't in here."

"If they've any sense, they'll have left the stadium," said Helga. "But one of them was injured. They can't have gone far. And the boy should have left a blood trail."

"We'll check outside, see if we can pick it up. But we can't go too far. We need that Feast tomorrow."

They all waited, almost holding their breath as they waited to see if the Careers would come closer again. Eventually, though, Esmeralda crept close to the whole again, and looked carefully through. "They're gone," she said.

"We should go as well," said Quasimodo. "If they're returning for the Feast, we don't want to be caught here."

No-one contested it, but Milo realised that they were all looking at Kida. To her. She rubbed her forehead, sinking to hunker down and rest her elbows on her knees. There were shadows beneath her eyes, and she was breathing shallowly. "I can't leave here," she said finally. "Tomorrow... I need to be here. The sixth day, this Feast."

"We can get supplies and run," said Cinderella. "Try to avoid the fighting."

Kida gave a hollow laugh. It sounded too dark in their small room. "We are five of the eight remaining. The Gamemakers are trying to pull us apart, and the others must be amazed that we have not turned against each other." Letting her hand fall, she looked up at them with shining blue eyes. "How can you trust me?"

"That's the point of Games, though, isn't it? To stop us from trusting each other." Cinderella's voice was quiet, but her words were clear enough. The sort of words that no-one was supposed to speak. "If not killing is refusing to play their Games, then maybe trusting each other is as well."

Esmeralda and Quasimodo nodded. Milo tried to nod, but it made his shoulder throb and he had to settle for looking as in-agreement as he could. At first, Kida simply looked around them all, then she gave the smallest of hopeful smiles. "Thank you. All of you."

 

 

They made a plan, so help them. Milo watched at first as Kida laid out how they would need supplies if there were any to be had at the Feast, and started to make a plan that she would go and fight for them while the others held back.

It was Esmeralda who interrupted first, saying that the rest of them did not need to be coddled away as if they were children. If this was about survival, they were quite capable of taking care of themselves.

"I do not want to endanger you," Kida said.

But Esmeralda shook her head. "That is not your choice."

"We should make a plan using all of us," said Milo. He shifted himself to a kneeling position, managing to tuck his arm into his lap so that it would hold still. "And what we have. It's... Ping from One, and Helga and Rourke from Two, right? They're all good at fighting, we know that. But we don't want to fight. So we out-think them."

Kida nodded slowly. "They'll have to get into a position where they can see the Feast, and they'll be trying to see if any others approach. There are a lot of places for that."

"The roof would be a good one," said Quasimodo. "We know there are ways up there. And it means no-one can get above you. I can watch up there, in case they come that way. Give you a signal if they're coming."

"And what if they attack you?"

"I'll protect myself," he said. He cast his eyes to the ground, and his voice became small for a moment. Ashamed. "I have a role at home now, but I didn't always. I've been in enough fights."

"Okay." Kida spoke quietly, and when Quasimodo looked up there was hope in his expression again. "Take the roof. Esmeralda, you're the best with distance weapons. You still have the sling?" Esmeralda nodded. "Okay. I want you in the stands, watching. You should be able to hit anyone hard enough to at least get them to make a sound. That will be enough for the rest of us."

"Cover you," Esmeralda said.

"Yes. Milo, you need to stay here-"

Milo's head snapped up, feeling a sting to his pride alongside the pain in his shoulder. "I'm not... dead." The word dropped in like a weight, and he regretted it even as Kida's eyes moved away. "The Feast usually comes up from beneath the Cornucopia, right? Setting off all of the mines like we did has almost certainly disrupted the machinery and tunnels. They'll do something unexpected. You could well need me there."

It sounded like a limp argument compared to what the others had to offer, but he looked at them defiantly all the same. Gritting his teeth, he raised and extended his arm, waggling his fingers.

"It still moves, so the wound can't be that bad. I can handle the pain."

"There might be something in the medical kit," said Cinderella cautiously. Kida did not look away from Milo, and he hoped that he was imagining or misunderstanding the pain that he saw in her eyes. "Let me..." she started rummaging, then took a sharp breath in.

"What is it?" said Kida.

"Orphate. One shot. It will only be good for one or two hours, but it should wipe out pretty much all of the pain. I can't believe they put this in."

"Too much and you could knock someone out," Kida said grimly.

"I know how to calculate the dosage," Cinderella replied. "I'll just need your weight."

She looked round to Milo, her nervousness falling away fast to reveal a core of steel beneath her fragile edges. Milo knew Drizella -- who was only a year younger than him -- and Anastasia, just enough to know that they were demanding and spiteful girls. Cinderella never complained. It was not as if there was much that anyone could have done for her, even if... he tried to push the thought aside, but his eyes fell on where the bruise had been on her cheek. The Remake Centre had swept it away, of course. But it was just a veneer.

Orphate was dangerous, everyone knew that. An older version of morphling, it had just as powerful an analgesic effect but lasted less time, and could cause convulsions. Even death. It were not common, but morphling was the safer choice.

"I'll take it," said Milo quickly, before anyone could raise objections. "Just before we have to go for the Feast. I can be there to see what's happening. Figure it out."

There was a tense silence, then Kida reached out and brushed her hand over his. "Okay," she said. He barely heard the word himself, and groped for her hand only for her to pull away again. "Quasimodo, the roof. Esmeralda, the stands. Cinderella, if one of us gets injured, we _will_ need you." She stood up, seeming to tower over them, and paused with her burning blue eyes still settled on the youngest of them. "Do not think that I am doing this against what would be best for us. It _is_ what would be best for us. Stay here, or if you must then stay with Esmeralda, and make sure that you can get clear whatever happens. Milo, you're with me."

"Where will that be?" His throat felt dry, and Kida gave a feral smile.

"At the Cornucopia."


	5. Dying

"I'm sorry," Kida whispered.

Milo shook his head as best he could in the confined space. "Don't. I agreed to this."

They lay curled in a hollow of the rubble, sharp points digging into them from below and dust on their skin. A sheet of camouflage material covered them, barely large enough for both even with their knees almost touching and their foreheads less than half a metre apart. It had come down on another parachute after Kida had made her request to the sky, and Milo wondered whether that was really _allowed_. Most tributes didn't really talk as if the cameras were there, too caught up in their own survival to remember that this was just a show to the Capitol.

"We should do the orphate now," said Milo. This time it was Kida's turn to nod, and she pulled the little box from her pocket. Cinderella had explained how it worked, but most of it had been beyond him -- something about a high-pressure jet of air, rather than even a needle. There was a little dial to say how much to inject, but there were no numbers beside the marks, and she had said that about half would probably be right. It was most likely meant to be one dose for any of the largest tributes -- boys like Rourke or Shan Yu, who would have been twice Milo's weight.

She pressed the syringe, or whatever it was, to his upper arm and pressed the plunger. It clicked, and Milo waited for a moment. Nothing. With a frown he looked round to his arm, but there was nothing more than a pink mark where it had been pressed in. "Did it work?"

"You tell me," said Kida, looking at the syringe closely. She touched the end carefully, but nothing happened. "It should take a few minutes, she said?"

Milo ran his fingers over the injection site and leant his head back against the ground. Less than two weeks ago, he had been back in District Twelve, with his grandfather and his friends, and this had been nothing more than a bad dream, a fear that lurked in everyone's minds.

They lay there in silence for a while, until Milo could take it no longer. "Why did you vol-"

"Do you hear that?"

Her eyes flicked upwards, and Milo closed his eyes. Honestly, one sensible question. Or answer. He didn't care now. At least whatever cameras and microphones had been set into the ground here had probably been destroyed in the blast as well.

He couldn't hear anything over the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. Before he could reply, though, he felt the heavy downward blast of air, and sucked in his breath at the shock of it. The sheet pressed down on them like a _weight_ , a strange half-falling feeling to it, and then he heard the rush of the engines.

They were right above.

_Don't reach this far don't reach this far don't-_ The words tumbled through Milo's mind as if the sheer force of them would change where the Feast would be delivered to, and he clutched Kida's hand. She was squeezing just as tightly in return. _Don't crush-_

With a heavy, grating crunch, whatever the hovercrafts had delivered was lowered into place. It went on for a far-too-long second, then silence followed and Milo finally breathed out again. He opened his eyes, surprised to find that it was not as dark beneath the sheet as he had thought that it would be.

"Ready," breathed Kida.

The orphate must have taken effect; his arm felt clumsy and not-quite-there, but it didn't hurt. Milo took a deep breath. "Ready."

 

 

Kida moved first, when they heard boots hit the ground beside them. With a wild cry that set the hairs on Milo's neck standing on end, she flung herself upwards with knife in hand, slamming into whichever of the three others had come so close to the Feast. Before the sheet blocked his view again, Milo caught a flash of blonde hair and heard a second feminine grunt of exertion.

"Okay, Milo." _There_ was the fear again, as tight as it had been first stepping in to the Arena. The almost-knowledge that he was going to die, that this Arena was designed for the purpose of killing and that there were people in here intent to kill, crushed back into him again. He clenched his hand around the empty bag he held and braced the other hand against the messy concrete beneath him. "It's time."

He threw aside the sheet and jumped to his feet. It wasn't quite so fluid, and he stumbled against 

"Jiminy christmas!"

The _table_. Rolls of bread fell off where he knocked against it, and that didn't even begin to touch the amount of food. It was more than Milo had ever seen. There was so much that for one moment there was no room in his mind for anything else, then he gathered himself enough to remember that he was supposed to fill his pack with food and run. Nothing else, Kida had said, almost viciously. It was important.

Looking for just a moment at where Kida was locked in hand-to-hand combat with Helga from District Two, he forced himself to obey. A crossbow bolt whistled past his face -- as if this could get worse -- and with a pounding heart he lunged towards the table. Underneath might make a shelter... but no, his foot connected with something solid, and there was no underneath. Well, only one thing for it, then.

Milo put his hands on the table, scattering cakes and sending oranges rolling away, and pushed himself up to slide across. Food fell around him, and another bolt hit the table just inches from his hand, but he made it over in one piece and tumbled to the ground. From the far side, he heard Kida give a snarl of anger and the sound of metal on metal, and reminded himself that he could _not go back_. If Esmeralda could get in a blow, or Quasimodo needed to drop down, they could, but his role was to get food and get out again. He knew that he wasn't a fighter, knew that there was no combat in him, but that didn't stop it from making him feel half-useless.

He pushed himself upwards, but a bolt clipped the table next to him and he crouched down again, low enough to be less of a target. At least if they were firing at him, they weren't firing at Kida, and he wasn't quite out in the open. He grabbed whatever was closest and started to put it into the bag; bread, yes, that was fine, apples, something wrapped up in silver foil. It was food, and that was good enough.

Between the crossbow bolts slamming down -- they had to be aiming just at him, there were so damn many -- he risked a peak over at Kida, just in time to see her grab Helga and the pair of them disappear down out of his line of sight. Helga gave a scream, cutting off into a crunching sound and he wanted to _help_ , but Kida was the only one of them who had ever seemed to know what they were doing here.

Footsteps. Milo spun, expecting Esmeralda or perhaps even Cinderella, but it was Fa Ping who had also approached the table, bag in hand. Looking for supplies. The younger boy glared at him, and it hit Milo that Ping had _killed_ , killed to stay in the Games this far, and even with the raw skin on one side of his face and the blood staining his tunic he was not to be crossed.

He thought of saying something, anything, but then another bolt made him duck and he lost his footing on the uneven concrete, stumbling back into a slight hollow. Something tugged on his leg; looking down, Milo saw the half-melted straps from something snaking out of the ground and tied around his ankle. Just perfect.

The bag went back over one shoulder, still only half-full. Milo bent to try to pull the strap away but it only seemed to tighten. Some sort of trap that they had burnt? It was almost sharp-edged beneath his hands, having managed to make a thorough knot for him to have blundered into. Gritting his teeth, he tried again, to no avail. The knife that had been given to him on the first day dug into his hip as he bent over, and he finally remembered it, pulling it loose and trying not to immediately drop it with his sweaty, shaking hands.

The knife cut through the straps, and his ankle was free. A wash of relief ran over Milo, and he looked up to see Ping close by, too close, raising a fist--

He saw stars as the punch reached him. Pain flashed across his face and he stumbled again, footing going completely this time to land him on his back on the ground. The knife fell from Milo's hand, but he left it, going to rise to his feet again only for Ping to appear over him.

A sharpened metal piece, spear-like, was in his hand.

_Oh._ That was what killing meant, of course, it meant taking weapons and using them, and now Ping was standing over him with a weapon and a grim, distant-eyed look on his face. Milo had known all along that he was probably going to die in the Games, but it had been sort of academic, distant, and his thoughts were speeding by as he raised one arm in feeble protection against--

Kida slammed into Ping, knocking him away and to the ground. For a moment, Milo could only stare as she pinned the younger boy down, threw the weapon from his hand, and held her dagger high in one hand as with her other she leant down on his throat.

"No-" Milo started to say, and he wasn't even sure _why_ , not when Ping had just been ready to kill him and Kida was doing this in his defence. But somehow, the thought of Kida killing was far worse, and when she stepped back and grabbed his arm to pull him up there was something wrong with her touch. "He-"

"He's unconscious," said Kida sharply. Blood matted her hair, and he could see marks that would become bruises on her cheek and around her eye. "So is Helga. We don't have much time."

She dragged him along, towards the Cornucopia, putting her dagger away and raising her free hand to give the whistle that was supposed to call the others. Milo still didn't understand; it felt like he didn't understand anything, like as soon as he got hold of an idea it turned out to be wrong instead. "You--"

"The sun is rising." As if she had not even heard him. Kida released him to cup her hands around her mouth. "Get down here. _Run!_ Get to me, to Milo!"

Her words were almost cut off by Rourke's bellow of fury, far above them. Milo looked upwards, flinching away, only to see Quasimodo, silhouetted against the rising sun, pick Rourke bodily off the ground and drop him over the edge.

_"You didn't kill them."_

_"Does it matter now?"_

The words were ringing in his head, and Rourke was falling, pulling Quasimodo with him, _no_ ; Milo started running just a heartbeat before Kida did, towards them both even as Quasimodo bought them skidding to a halt on the rope.

A knife. A fading scream. A cannon.

Death. That was all that it was, death filling the stadium and the Arena and the world, and Milo felt a burst of anger so strong that he was surprised it did not bowl him over. Kida grabbed his arm before he could reach Rourke's wild-eyed, wild-smiling figure, her hands iron-tight on his arm. It grabbed at his shoulder, and he felt a throb of pain there again. "Go," she hissed. "The Cornucopia. _I will meet you there._ "

He didn't want to obey the words, wanted to obey her. Then she thrust him in the vague direction, drawing her dagger with the other hand, and with something like shame filling him he did as he was commanded. Cinderella was in the shadows of the Cornucopia now, her bright hair and pale face shocking in the grey world, supporting Esmeralda. The older girl had a bloodstained bandages around her thigh, her face drawn.

"Kida-" Cinderella began, as Milo drew closer.

"Has a plan." _Must_ have a plan. Something was wrong, so wrong, with Kida gathering them together and refusing to kill, talking as if the Gamemakers were trying to fight her personally. A cannon filled the air, and he looked round with his heart in his mouth to see Rourke on the ground in a pool of blood, Helga lowering some small weapon and turning to the others. Six of them, all here within sight of each other. Something was not--

The ground exploded beneath them. The Cornucopia screamed, concrete cracked and roared, and the world filled with grey until something struck his head, and it all turned black instead.


	6. Fleeing

Somebody was ripping open his arm.

"Aaaargh!" Milo awoke with a yell, only for a hand to clamp over his mouth and pin him down again. Good lord, he hurt. 

Everything hurt. The orphate must have been even shorter-lived than usual, or too small a dose. He blinked away dust, and made out Kida's face in the dim light above him, her white hair dishevelled but highly visible. "What-" he hissed.

She took her hand away, then did something to his arm again and he bit back a yelp, looking down. "As far as the Gamemakers are concerned, you are about to die." Her fingers shoved _into_ his arm, shit, then he felt her tug something away hold it up in her blood-smeared fingers.

"My tracker?"

Not replying, Kida dropped it to the floor and crushed it beneath her heel. Milo looked to her arm and realised that she had the same cut there, dripping blood, and as she pulled him to his feet he saw Esmeralda and Cinderella off to the side as well. His head throbbed, and black spots wavered in front of his eyes as he drew upright.

Cinderella looked uninjured. She was strapping Esmeralda's leg, pants cut away above the knee, between two straight pieces of metal. It was clearly some sort of improvised splint. Esmeralda was muttering and hissing beneath her breath words which Milo did not quite recognise but suspected were both rude and regional. "Can I help?"

"What's left of that orphate would be good," said Esmeralda. There was a lump low on her shin, and bruising starting to appear, but her face had paled.

"I've got it," said Kida, stepping past him and drawing it out of her pocket once again. She handed it over to Cinderella. 

"You can walk, or we can carry you."

"I'll walk." Esmeralda held out her arm for Cinderella to do the injection. "Or limp."

"What is going on?" Milo finally burst out. He gestured to the barely-lit tunnel in which they stood, one end now blocked off with rubble. "This it not part of the Arena."

"No," Kida replied. She wasn't smiling, but there was some weight taken off her shoulders, some lightness in her eyes. "These are the maintenance tunnels. We're getting out of the Arena."

"Getting... what?"

Cinderella and Kida helped Esmeralda to her feet, then Kida slung one of Esmeralda's arms around her shoulder. "A rebellion has been brewing for years, and it has started now. There's a team coming to get as many of us as I could get out."

Rebellion... revolution... they were banned words, banned ideas. Things that belonged in history books and stories from long ago, not something that walked the streets now. Of course, people _hated_ the government and President Yensid, and people _muttered_ about revolt, and...

And it was _true_. Milo stared at Kida for a good few seconds, then something in him hardened and he crossed to stand on Esmeralda's other side. "Then... we go."

 

 

It was real. Unless he was still unconscious, or this was the most convoluted plan he had ever seen a tribute conduct, this was _real_. They hurried through dimly-lit tunnels, looking sharply round each time some noise in the distance caught their attention. The sound of mutts, or the muffled roar of a cannon.

"If they think we're dead, they must think that it's over," said Esmeralda after the cannon sounded. Sure enough, within minutes the faint sound of the anthem reached them.

"They may not really think we're dead," Kida replied. "But the audience do. They have a winner."

She had her dagger in her free hand, and Milo still carried a knife, though it felt hopelessly inadequate and was sticky with blood and dust. Once again, the orphate wore off quickly, and soon Esmeralda was grunting and swearing with pain as they continued on. Finally a flashlight cut through the darkness ahead of them, and they froze, shifting back slightly into the shadow of one of the bends in the tunnel. A second flashlight joined the first, and for a moment it caught the holder in silhouette against the darkness.

Kida let out a deep breath. "Sweet!" She called, in that voice people used when they were trying to shout quietly. "Over here!"

The flashlight swung towards them, and Milo flinched away from it for a moment before his eyes adjusted, then he heard the bearers of the lights jog over towards them. "You made it out," said a man's voice. He had a District Four accent, but tempered, not as strong. "How many?"

"Just four of us," Kida replied. "Esmeralda's injured."

"The District Seven girl." Milo's eyes were beginning to adjust enough to see the figure; Sweet was darker-skinned than Kida, and probably the tallest man Milo had ever seen, but he moved carefully. If it hadn't been for the gun at his hip, Milo would have wanted to trust him immediately. "I saw the interviews, nothing after that. Come on, we marked an exit up ahead."

"Where was the Arena?" Sweet and his companion, a more slender man with reddish-brown hair and a longer rifle over his shoulder, started back the way that they had come. Kida followed them, and the others followed her, Esmeralda breathing out another curse or two as they rounded the corner.

"Just south of Twelve, east coast. We're boating it back to Four."

Boats. Four. Milo felt as if his head was spinning as they reached a narrow shaft upwards, a ladder set against the wall. Sweet was saying something about treating Esmeralda's leg, saying that they had morphling with them to settle it for longer with less risk. Esmeralda's arm was unlooped from his shoulders, and then he jumped as someone touched his arm. It was just Cinderella, though, and he relaxed at the sight. Though there some small cuts and bruises on her arms, she looked generally okay.

"We're really getting out of the Arena, aren't we?" she said.

"Yeah." Even though he was nodding, he was still struggling to believe it. "They did it. This is... this is _huge_. Revolution. I didn't..."

People talked about it, about the rebellion that had happened almost eighty years ago and had taken years to damp down again. But the Capitol had tried to tamp the fire out of the Districts, and only managed to leave hate behind instead. It didn't surprise him, in a way. But it was still hard to believe that it was real.

"We aren't going home," said Milo quietly. "It sounds like they're taking us to District Four."

Cinderella pressed her lips together for a moment, then reached up to rub her arm. "It's better than dying." Her voice trembled slightly, and he heard the child there again. She seemed to shrink back to looking young. "Thank you for making the alliance."

A scrap of paper, jokes about food and air conditioning, that was all that it had been at first. Less than a week later, it was _this_ , with Sweet and the other man -- Kida was calling him Robin -- rigging up a rope harness to get Esmeralda out with the minimum of hurt. She protested that she'd rather be out than avoid pain, but Sweet added that it was to avoid damage as well, and she relented.

"Thank you as well." He reached up to touch his shoulder; it was hot to the touch, and the skin felt swollen, but it wasn't so bad again yet that he couldn't move it. Perhaps that was just adrenaline. "You helped keep us alive."

Cinderella looked away, and he wondered if she was thinking of Quasimodo as well. Just minutes more, and he would have been with them.

"Come on," said Kida, interrupting. She gestured for them to climb the ladder. "Let's go. They had to cut the sensors above ground, and it won't take long before the Peacekeepers realise why."

 _Freedom_. It was more than Milo could have even thought of asking for.

He just wished that it was _home_.

 

 

They scrambled up to the surface, and he was almost surprised to find that it was still bright daylight, not even clouded over as it had been inside the Arena. He had never seen the wild areas between Districts before, but it was not particularly special, just forest and ferns like were visible in summer beyond the fence of Twelve. They kept moving, Robin now taking Milo's place in helping Esmeralda, slipping through the trees on some path that their -- well, Milo had to call them _rescuers_ really -- their rescuers seemed to know.

He wished that he could look at the woods for longer. He'd never been this close to this many trees before -- wild ones, not the scrawny things that grew in places around Twelve, where it seemed like the coal dust had sunk into the ground itself sometimes. This place smelt different. But he was having to cradle his arm to his chest now, shoulder throbbing, and the others were walking quickly ahead, talking in low, hurried voices. He caught something about railway lines, and Peacekeepers, and a word that sounded something like _Atlantis_. It wasn't enough to make sense of.

He wanted desperately to ask, to ask for anything about what was going on, but the others were focused on keeping moving and still talked in that hurried, concerned way. Cinderella slipped her hand into his, and he squeezed gently, but neither of them could find words that seemed right.

 

 

Robin and Sweet led them to a tough-looking jeep, painted in camouflage and parked beneath one of the larger, more sprawling trees. Esmeralda was leaning more and more on Robin's shoulder, her face drawn and blood on her lip where she had bitten it, breath getting more ragged. It made anything that the rest of them had to worry about seem like a minor issue.

"Anyone not injured enough to go in the front?" said Sweet. He let down the back of the jeep and helped Esmeralda up onto it, letting her sit on the floor and clutch at the side. "Who had the medical knowledge to do the splint?"

"That was me," said Cinderella shyly. She had to step out from behind Robin to do so, and looked up like she was speaking to a teacher again. "And I'm not badly injured, just cuts and bruises, but I can help."

"I'll give you some antiseptic wipes and let you look over yourself, if that's all right," said Sweet. "Presuming you haven't got a concussion you aren't telling me about. Rob there'll need someone on the cam while he's driving, let John and Clucky know that we're headed for the boats now. Reckon you can do that?"

Cinderella nodded, and Robin tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the front doors. Milo had seen cars before, but only when people from the Capitol visited, and those had been sleek glossy vehicles rather than this rough machine. This had more in common with the machines at the mines, even if it was covered in mud rather than coal-dust. Sweet climbed up into the back and helped Esmeralda to lie down, moving some sort of foam slab under her injured leg, then reached to help first Kida and then Milo up with him.

The back of the jeep was cramped, and with the back gate closed there were barely inches beyond Esmeralda's feet. Long, benchlike chairs, the fabric of the cushion worn thin, stretched down either side; Kida had slid onto one and motioned for Milo to join her by the cab and out of Sweet's way. Shuffling around was inelegant at best, almost laughable, but at the same time it was a little too much like the hovercraft that had bought them here.

"I almost don't care whether this is real," Milo said aloud, the words escaping him without warning. Instead of harnesses, there was just some sort of restraint that went around his waist, and it didn't exactly feel secure. At least the jeep wouldn't be flying. "But it feels too good to be true."

"The war isn't won yet," said Sweet. He slid back a panel beneath the chair to reveal a whole medical kit hidden away, drew out some wipes, and tossed them through the small window into the cab. "But we're making a start."

"War?" said Milo, just as Kida asked: "How many Districts are up so far?"

"Four and Eight are definitely up," said Sweet. He knelt back down as the engine kicked into life; it made the jeep shudder and Esmeralda gave a stifled yelp. "And last we heard, Five was planning to. Someone tried to go early in Two, and it's turning into civil war. Didn't hear anything else before the comms went down." His eyes lingered on Milo for a moment. "Of course, we don't really know what's going to happen with Twelve. Haven't heard from them in eighteen months."

"I didn't know anything about this."

"Of course you didn't," said Kida. "But you agreed with it." With one hand, she was holding on to a strap above her head, bracing herself as the jeep set off over the rough terrain. The other arm was wrapped around her chest. "People will, wherever we go. That's all that we need."

Sweet withdrew a syringe from somewhere beneath Milo's legs, and he tried to draw away from it instinctively. "I'm afraid this lady gets first dibs on the morphling," the man said, by way of explanation, but despite the pain in his arm Milo wasn't in the mood for any more needles. "Now, enough shop talk. What injuries are you carrying?"

"I got shot with a crossbow bolt?" Milo offered.

"That'd do it."

"And knocked out in the collapse. Those plates were more powerful than usual." There was distaste in Kida's voice at the words. "This whole games was Amp'ed."

"And you?" Sweet levelled a stern, doctor's gaze on her. "I may not have seen what you got up to, but I'll bet it involved some injuries."

Kida shrugged, then winced at the movement and rested her head against her arm. "Cuts, bruises, grazes. One of them tried to cut open my hand, but I don't think they did anything too serious." She shifted in her seat as they went over a particularly nasty pothole, drawing in her breath sharply. "Maybe a couple of broken ribs."

"Not good for day six," said Sweet, but he didn't push too far. Reaching again beneath the benches, he produced a packet of pills and tossed them up to Kida. "Two of those. You can have some too," he said, with a nod to Milo. "They're safe with orphate. All right, my fair lady." He turned to concentrate on Esmeralda, whose eyes had drifted partially closed despite the pain still pinching her features. "Looks like you're number one priority. That morphling should be kicking in by now, so I'm going to have to straighten out this leg of yours. I warn you: it will hurt. Don't worry about screaming, we can just put it down to Robin's bad driving."

From the front of the cab, Robin blew a raspberry, and Milo let himself crack a smile. He took the tablets when Kida offered them, and marvelled for a moment how casually medicine like this was being handed out. Almost everything was herbal in District Twelve -- even the merchie families had to save up to afford Capitol medicine, and anything as strong as morphling or orphate would need to be applied for officially. Kida had just swallowed hers, but it took a couple of tries for Milo to manage the same, and they still felt almost as if they were stuck in his throat.

"Did you plan this all along?" he said to Kida.

"This plan has been in motion for much longer than I have been alive," she replied. Her voice was a little quiet, breathing shallow. "And I originally wanted to volunteer at a younger age. But yes, once it was decided, it was agreed with the rebel group that they would try to make their way in through the sub-Arena tunnels on day six, and that I would save as many as I could if I lived until then."

"Hold on to your hats, folks," called Robin from the front seat, before they could say anything else. Sweet looked up from where he was kneeling beside Esmeralda's broken leg. "Just got a call in saying the hovercrafts have been released. I'm gonna have to put my foot down."

"Where are we going? District Four?"

Kida smiled, though her teeth were gritted. "To the coast. It'll be faster to take a boat across the Gulf, and they're less likely to catch us."

"Are you-" They hit a particularly fierce jolt in the road, and Milo caught his breath not just at the rattling of his own shoulder but at the truncated scream which Esmeralda gave. "Are you sure?"

"There's no Peacekeeper who can handle a boat as well as a Four native. Wait and see."


	7. Sailing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for any inaccuracies or vaguaries about sailing or sniping. Just put it down to it being the future/Milo not know about these things/Robin being a badass.

They reached the northern shore of Steamboat Bay before the sun was even high in the sky. The hovercrafts were visible in the sky behind them, but were not yet so close as to start shooting, and Robin parked with a minimum of jolting in the shade of one of the large trees.

"Last stop, everyone off!" he called, already part-way out of the door. Kida and Sweet started moving, and Milo almost tumbled out of his seat as he tried to follow them. Sweet had managed to move Esmeralda onto a stretcher during the journey, her leg now properly splinted and the morphling ensuring that she swore only when the ground was particularly rough.

The rear of the jeep was opened by another man, heavily-built and brown-skinned, whose eyes skimmed over each of them in turn. "Good to see people got out. Come on, we should move."

"Good to see you too, John," said Robin, clapping him on the shoulder in passing. "Kida, laddie, you two ride with me and John. Cinderella, you're with Sweet and our lovely lady Klucky."

He nodded to the woman working on one of the boats; she was short and plump, her hair covered by a pale blue headscarf. At the sound of Robin's voice, she looked up and acknowledged them with a wave, then went back to whatever she was working on.

"Come on, kids!" said Robin. "We should get moving. Hovercrafts ahoy!"

 

 

Milo had never seen a boat in real life before. Robin's amused comment about having liberated some Peacekeeper craft didn't mean too much, and as soon as the vessel started moving his feet went from under him and he stumbled into the side.

"Might want to grab a handhold," said John, who was at the controls. "It's going to get rough once we get out of the Bay."

But it was frustrating. Clinging to the bar that ran around the inside of the cabin, Milo tried to keep out of John's way, and stole glances over his shoulder. Robin and Kida, rifles in hand, were standing ready on the rear of the boat in the rushing wind and choppy sea as if they were still on dry land.

"That's what they call sea-legs, right?" he called to John over the roar of the engine. As Steamboat Bay widened out, the wind became more noticeable, kicking the sea up into choppy waves and buffeting the boats. The other boat was ahead of them, with no armed figures on its deck.

John laughed. "Yeah. Mine were never as good as Rob's. District Eight isn't a place for them."

District Eight. Well, that explained Klucky's headscarf, if not what they were doing fighting for District Four. Milo looked back again in time to see that the hovercraft had drawn closer, gunning hard over the water. Robin lifted his rifle to his shoulder and, with a _crack_ like breaking wood, fired. The hovercraft lurched in the sky, then started losing height fast; it turned away towards the shore as Robin lowered his rifle again and watched it go.

"That boy could shoot the wings off a fly," said John, just loudly enough for Milo to hear.

Milo's knuckles whitened as he gripped the rail. He'd never heard a gunshot before, either.

"How long will it take to get to Four?" he shouted.

John shrugged, shifting the controls slightly to follow the boat ahead of them. "Thirteen, fourteen hours. Peacekeeper boats are fast, but they're not sturdy enough to go too far from land. We'll have to hug the coast on the way south. We can outrun the hovercrafts, but these are only north Eleven's. We'll have others to deal with on the way down."

Thirteen hours on the boat. Before midnight, they would be in District Four, and the strangest day Milo had ever known would finally be at an end.

 

 

The sickness kicked in a few hours into their escape. The jagged motions of the boat made Milo's stomach lurch with them, and he was grateful that he hadn't eaten that day when he had to fight back the urge to retch. Robin came in to steer for a while, sending John out to pick up a rifle in turn, as three more times hovercrafts appeared in the sky, only to be picked off or outrun.

Once, Milo actually heard the clatter of gunfire from the craft, and saw the spray of the sea behind them where the bullets struck. But Kida raised her rifle angrily and fired one, two short bursts; flame billowed from the side of the hovercraft and it crashed down into the sea rather than head back towards land like the others.

Exhaustion and cold began to sink in, and he shook where he stood. He had found that it was easier to stand with a corner to lean in to, and braced his shoulders against the walls as best he could with the pain. The open-ended cabin protected him from the worst of the spray, but after hours he was wet through, the wind cutting and cold at the speeds they were travelling.

Finally, Kida moved in. Her hair was sopping wet, stuck to her face, and one of the cuts on her cheek had opened up to leak blood. She grabbed Robin's shoulder and nodded to the outside, without speaking a word.

"Kida?" Milo crept forward carefully as she took the controls. Her shoulders were still squared, and she was moving in angry, taut lines. She did something to the controls that got an extra kick from the engines, and Milo stumbled as the boat jumped forward under her touch. He forced himself closer, though, and put a hand on her arm. "Kida."

She started at his touch, looking round with eyes that were almost glazed, but then blinked and the look vanished. "What is it?"

"What's happening?"

"We're past District Eleven," she replied. Her voice sounded hoarse. "The coast here is borderland. There's one hovercraft station, but otherwise we should be clear."

"That's good. That's..." he trailed off, nodding, then squeezed her arm. "Thank you, Kida."

"You accepted. You believed." Her gaze was so intense that it almost made him feel uncomfortable, but Kida looked away first to scan the sea ahead of them again. Off to their left, the coastline was visible, forested. "Hang on. I'm going to try to plane."

Milo wasn't too sure whether that sounded like a good thing or not. Kida pulled one lever, flicked a switch -- did _something_ to the boat, anyway -- and with a guttural roar, the boat kicked forward again. Then, suddenly, it was smooth, the wind even faster and sharper as it curled around the edges of the cabin but the boat no longer seeming to fight the waves. For the first time in many hours, Kida smiled, though she held tightly to the lever she had moved.

"Is there anything I can do?" It would certainly help his feeling of uselessness, Milo thought, and it might take his mind off the nausea as well. Although the smoother ride of the boat seemed to be helping with the latter. "To help?" he added, as Kida looked at him almost blankly.

Finally, she nodded. "There's a box of rations there, lashed down," she nodded to a wooden crate tied with layers of rope to the side of the ship. "It would be good to pass some around. Should be some Colfen, as well, for your shoulder and my ribs. And if you can work out how to use this radio," she nodded to the system set to the left of the controls she was working, all buttons and dials with two headsets, "all the better."

"I'm on it."

 

 

He got the radio working again just as Robin shouted in that he could see the northern Peacekeeper boatstation. Tongue sticking out of his mouth, Milo did not look round until he finally found the wavelength that the Peacekeepers were using.

"--boats, repeat, two stolen Peacekeeper boats. Nedakh is aboard, repeat, Nedakh is aboard. Orders are to sink if necessary."

Kida cursed, then shouted over her shoulder to the men outside. "How far south is the line?"

"Was at Nacre River," said John, squeezing back in past the box of supplies that Milo had pried open. "Could be further north by now. I'll take the wheel; we'll need you shooting."

"Don't crash," said Kida as she let him take over. The humour had left her tone. "Milo, keep that radio tuned, or we'll lose it as we head south. It would be nice to know what's coming for once."

 

 

John was able to handle a boat, but he didn't have the deft touch that Kida did. The waves were fighting them again, spray seeming to cut across the deck almost constantly. Then again, it could have had something to do with the fact that it was no longer hovercraft chasing them, but boats.

Robin called a warning as three craft shot out from the mainland, and immediately John moved to place himself between them and the other boat. They were all black, shadows on the water, and they shot across as fast as arrows towards them.

"Hold on," said John, and jerked the boat towards them.

The world lurched. Milo grabbed at the rail beside him and looked out to see Robin and Kida raising guns to their shoulders. Robin's had a longer barrel, a sight, and he used it to fire single rounds while Kida let loose short bursts. Gunfire clattered above the sound of the wind and the engines, thunderous, and Milo ducked away from the window as a spray of bullets slammed into it. He looked up to see the glass unmarked, but that did not help the closeness of it.

Kida dropped to her knees at the edge of the boat, ducking her head as bullets whipped over her. How could there not be fear in her eyes? She put a new magazine in her rifle, then shifted along a few paces, keeping low and hidden. As Robin dropped down in turn, she rose to her knees again, aiming in a fluid move which he knew had to mean _practice_.

The Arena had been one thing. It was... _old-fashioned_ , Milo supposed, with crossbows and mines some of the highest technology that the tributes could get their hands on. Guns and hovercraft and boats were something else.

Robin stood and fired again, and one of the boats spun wildly away; through its shattered window Milo could see a splatter of blood and unmanned controls. It flipped, sharply, crashing down onto the water with its speed still intact, and the wreckage disappeared beneath the waves. Milo moved away from his own window again, and cast a worried look at John.

One of the other Peacekeeper boats had cut towards Klucky and Sweet's craft, and they were turning away from the mainland as they tried to outpace it.

"Robin!" John bellowed. "Eleven o'clock!"

Robin almost skidded across deck to the other side of the boat, rifle still in hand. A red feather of blood stained his shirt, but it did not impede him as he raised his rifle.

"One-twelve miles," continued John, "wind twenty-six knots at thirty degrees clockwise of target, zero elevation, distance point eight miles."

Surely at this range, in this wind, he could not--

Robin fired. There was a split-second that felt like forever, then the second ship peeled away and drifted to a sputtering halt. Immediately, Robin fired again, and within seconds fire was consuming the rear end of the boat. The fuel tank? Perhaps the Peacekeepers assumed that they would always be the pursuing, not the pursued.

"One left," said Robin, but the third craft was holding distant from them, on a parallel course. He raised his rifle again, but the waves jostled the ship and with a curse he grabbed at the side instead. "Damn it, John!"

"They've pushed us out," Kida said. She moved into the cabin, grabbing Milo by the arm and pushing him towards the radio. "The sea's too rough to get a good aim. They'll wait for us to pull back in, and for back-up to arrive. Milo, get that radio back!"

Milo was used to listening to Kida's orders, but stranger was seeing the older men defer to her as well, John holding a steady course and Robin reloading. Klucky's boat pulled back in to their left side, close enough that Milo could look across and see Sweet at the helm, Cinderella beside him, and Klucky on deck. She was hefting a thick black cylinder to her shoulder.

"What is she doing?" he called. John and Kida looked away from the last Peacekeeper boat to see Klucky, and John laughed.

"Oh, that's my girl."

He eased back a little on the ship, letting Sweet pull ahead and then across towards the Peacekeeper boat. The distant sound of gunfire clicked in the air, but Klucky took aim with -- Milo remembered just in time what weapons the Peacekeepers had -- the rocket launcher, and fired.

The last boat erupted into a plume of orange flame, flipping nose-over-end three times across the water's surface towards them. With a yell, John steered them away from the flaming mass, then as it settled into the water pulled them back onto course and started to head closer to the mainland again.

"I think my friend Vinnie would like her," Milo said.

"Sounds like I should meet your friend Vinnie," replied John. "Now let's get some past the engine, and see if we can't get behind the line."


	8. Mourning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Atlantean is a downright amazing language. The Atlantean you see in this chapter is as correct as I could make it, with vocabulary and grammar taken from [this](http://www.freewebs.com/keran_shadlag/) awesome site.

If being on the boat had been unpleasant during the day, Milo did not want to say what he thought of it after night fell. They dared not turn on full lights, trying to stay hidden, and so it was only one dim lantern that gave any shape to the cabin. There were night-goggles, instead, which made the world grey-green and gritty to look at. There wasn’t even much to see – just distant lights on their right, marking the horizon, and the other boat to their left.

“Will there be more hovercraft after us?” Milo asked Kida, as she came under the shelter of the cabin. It was starting to rain, big heavy drops that hurt when they hit bare skin in the whipping wind.

“Perhaps.” She didn’t look round, removing her goggles for a moment to rub her eyes before looking out of the window again. Frowning, she did some sort of adjustment to the goggles – Milo had not dared touch the settings on them – and leant forward. “John...” A warning tone. “I’ve got lights in the distance.”

“Rob, get your sharpshooter eyes in here!” Hollered John, but Robin bounded over to the side of the boat and raised his sniper rifle instead. He held there for a couple of moments, all tense lines, then pulled back in. When he entered the cabin as well, he had a huge grin on his face.

“Blue lights. We’ve got a welcome party.”

John gave a relieved whoop, and even Kida smiled. “North of Nacre,” she commented. “We must be almost at the Town.”

Most Districts only had one major town – Eight practically _was_ only a city – if they were big enough to have one at all. Milo remembered his grandfather saying that District Four had fishing villages along the coasts, and Victor’s Village in the north-west where it faced the Capitol ‘vacation’ lands, but that there was still one major town where much of the fish was processed and where the railway to the Capitol lay. That was where the reapings took place.

The boats waiting for them had lights at the prows – only lanterns, nothing that would be too visible, but blue. As they approached, John slowed them down, and the waiting craft turned around so that they were side-by-side as they finally headed towards land. Milo stuck his head out of the cabin as the coast came closer, fires marking the beach. There was nothing to hear over the sea and the engine, but he thought that he might just be able to see little silhouettes moving around from time to time.

The beach drew closer, and he could definitely hear people now. Kida exited to the deck then, as they drew towards the shore, moved round to the front of the boat. Her white hair whipped against the night as she stood at the front of the boat, one hand gripping the rail, the other punching the air. There were cheers and clapping from the shore, one or two people calling her name, and Milo could not see her expression from where he stood.

“Right,” said John, and the boat stopped with a jolt that made Milo stumble again. His legs ached from trying to keep his balance, and even the tablets that he had taken earlier did not really take away the pain in his shoulder. “Let’s get ashore.”

Robin jumped down into the waist-deep water, waving to the handful of people wading out into the surf to greet them. There was excitement in the air, laughter, even with the feeling that tension was only just unwinding. Someone threw a rope to John, who caught it deftly from the air and tied it off to the stern of the boat. As his eyes adjusted, Milo saw that they were in a sort of bay, not too marked but probably enough to give some shelter, and that there were houses further back from the beach.

“Come on.” Kida’s voice made him jump, and he turned to find her right beside him. She looked pale in the low light, with shadows beneath her eyes, and part of him did not understand simply because this was her home. There were people and places that she knew here. Again he thought of his grandfather, and wondered what was happening now in District Twelve. If the Arena had been near to Steamboat Bay, they had not even been that far away. She went to take his hand, then paused for a moment and peered into his face carefully. “You said that you’d never seen the sea before.”

“It’s been quite an introduction,” he replied. His stomach was still in knots, the pain from his shoulder felt as if it was spreading through his arm and chest, and he could not remember when he last slept. Land sounded like a marvellous thing right now.

“Tomorrow, you will have a better one.” She slipped her hand into his, and tugged him gently by his uninjured arm to the side of the boat. It might have been too much if she emulated Robin’s graceful vault, but she climbed over and helped him to follow, splashing down into the sea.

It _stung_. Milo hissed as the saltwater found all the little cuts and grazes on the lower half of his body that he had not noticed before. There was a lulling pull at his lower legs, but the cold shock of the water quickly faded away. It wasn’t frightening, though perhaps he was just too tired for that.

Kida kept hold of his hand as they waded ashore, only releasing it as they splashed out of the waves and onto the sand. It slipped beneath his feet and fought his steps, and Milo wasn’t so sure that he liked beaches at all.

One of the people from the beach ran forward and pulled Kida into a hug. She was wearing a blue sash over her simple grey clothes, and a red headscarf covered her hair.

“Marian-” Kida hissed, and the woman pulled away.

“Are you hurt?” She brushed hair off Kida’s forehead, and must have seen the dark stain of blood from the way that she winced. “We need to get you properly seen to.”

Someone else came forward with blankets, draping one over Kida’s shoulders and then moving to do the same to Milo. The rough fabric seemed to scrape like sandpaper over his wound, but the fabric was dry and warm and he wanted desperately to huddle into it. Though the night air was still not too cold, he was shivering, gritting his teeth together.

“Later,” said Kida. “Where is my grandfather? He should be on the western coast.” She had tugged the blanket around her shoulders but still stood proudly. “He said that he would be waiting for me, if I returned.”

The rain was not so bad here, not soaking through the blankets though most of the people on the beach were soaked through. Milo looked round to see Esmeralda being carried up the beach, Sweet still alongside her and talking rapidly to someone in white hospital clothing. Cinderella, her blonde hair very visible in the night, was almost left behind until Klucky folded her under one arm and led her over to where Kida and the others were standing.

It almost meant that he missed Marian’s quiet reply. “Kida, your grandfather is not here.”

Kida stood, frowning. “Is he inland? Are we cut off from him?”

Marian hesitated, then reached out as if to take Kida’s hand. Kida snatched it away, stepping back and drawing up to her full height. It was only a few centimetres more than Marion, but either her bearing or her hard gaze or the signs of the Games still in the bruises and cuts on her face made her look older than the other girl. “The moment that you were Reaped, the Capitol knew that something was coming,” said Marian finally. “Once you were on the train, the Town was locked down. They tried to get the villages too, and that was when the fighting started. Before you even went into the Arena.”

“My _grandfather_ ,” said Kida again, more harshly.

“The Town is under siege.” The words sounded heavier than they should have done, and Milo saw Kida sway slightly. He took half a step towards her, but she did not look round. Marian took a deep breath. “The Peacekeepers took your grandfather hostage, ordered us to surrender. Your grandfather said... _Beketyoh. Kwam hagedsokik_.”

“Please do not stop.” The words seemed automatic on Kida’s tongue, and horror was taking root in her expression. Ignoring the pain that shot through him, Milo reached out to put his hand on her back, and this time she glanced towards him. There was a plea there that he couldn’t even understand, let alone solve, and he had the feeling that she knew what was about to be said.

Her eyes closed before Marian spoke. “They executed him.”

Even Milo felt as if he had been hit. For one terrible moment he felt the ache that it would be if it had been his grandfather, and he wanted to curl in around the horror of it, but he blinked and told himself that his grandfather was still in District Twelve, a world away. He could feel the tense muscles of Kida’s back, but her expression did not change – it froze, eyes gone cold again.

The moment held in the air, then Kida stepped sharply away, throwing the blanket off her shoulders. She reached up to her neck and grabbed the blue pendant there, pulling so sharply that the cord holding it in place snapped, a red mark left behind on her neck. She threw it to the ground, at Marian’s feet, then turned and ran.

“Oh no.” Marian went to run after her, but Klucky grabbed the younger woman by the arm.

“It’s not you she’s angry with, but you’ll feel the anger if you go,” she said warningly.

Milo bent down to scoop the pendant out of the sand again. The crystal was a light blue, with an almost luminous quality, and the cord it was on had been old and frayed even before Kida had pulled it away. “I’ll go,” he said, prompting Klucky to look at him in surprise. Kida was gone into the darkness by now, the flash of her white hair no longer visible. “I’m guessing there’s somewhere round here she knows?”

“She used to live here when she was young,” Klucky replied, and Milo thought of the story that Kida had told the first night that they had been in the Arena. “The old house of theirs, probably. I can take you.”

Marian reached over to take Cinderella’s hand, saying something about getting some food and dry clothes, but Klucky started off down the beach and Milo had to trot to keep up with her. “Robin said we were going to get Kida and her allies from the Games. You were one of them, then?”

“Yes.” He tried to take a deep breath and regretted it, and settled for trying not to pant too much. Klucky strode like a man, and the muscles of her shoulders pulled beneath her wet shirt. “She asked us. Cinderella and me.”

“She’s got an eye for people,” said Klucky. They were beyond most of the people on the beach by now, heading up onto solid ground. A handful of small houses, little more than huts, stood on top of a rocky outcrop. “Here. They don’t use these any more. They’re just huts, for the fishing season. Never did much more than sleep in them. That one,” she nodded to one of the houses, “with the blue door.”

There was a crash from inside the hut, then the sound of shattering glass. Klucky stopped, and Milo hesitated before slipping off the blanket and handing it to her. “Thank you,” he said.

Somehow, he felt as nervous walking towards the house as he had in the Arena. The door was ajar, no light on inside, but his eyes had adjusted and the fat white moon was just about enough to see by. Milo paused by the front door to peer in, not sure what to expect. “Kida?”

Another heavy thud make him flinch, but he took a step closer all the same, and finally saw her. There was an overturned chair at her feet, a broken table and a couple of smashed pots on the floor, and a wooden cot to the back of the room. Nothing more. Kida stood with her back to him, shoulders shaking, and he saw her raise her hands to cover her face.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and the words were nothing like enough. Milo stepped forwards, over the broken things scattered around, and in front of her. “I can’t imagine...”

“No.” Kida looked up. Tears streaked her cheeks, shining on the shadows beneath her eyes. “You don’t understand. He was supposed to live. To help lead the rebellion. I was the one who did not know whether I was going to come back.”

The Games had been fast and brutal, even more so than usual, but Milo knew that Kida was right. There was no guarantee that any tribute would make it to the sixth day, not even a Career with the backing of a relatively comfortable district. He gently took hold of her wrists and pulled her hands away.

He had been going to die. He had _known_ it, not thought it, because District Twelve hadn’t won a games in over fifty years and everyone knew that the annual collection they took to buy a gift was little more than a last meal. “I’m not sure that things went how anyone expected this year. But Kida-” she went to pull her arms away and turn away from him again, but he held on even when his arm screamed. “He’d be glad to know that you’re alive. He’d want that.”

Perhaps they were the right words, because Kida stopped and looked down at his hands again. The pendant was still wrapped around his fingers. She gently drew her hand out of his grasp and took the crystal from him, cradling it in one hand and looking deeply into it.

“You’re right,” she said finally. Her fingers closed around the crystal, and she held it to her chest. “This was my mother’s. It was her District Token as well.”

Milo wasn’t sure what to say, whether there were even right words to say in a moment like this, and just kept hold of her other wrist. Slowly, Kida lifted the pendant to press her lips against it, and took a trembling breath.

“We should go back to the beach. The others are waiting.”

He still didn’t know what was even going on, but did not ask questions when the way she clung to the crystal made her look almost... brittle. It was not a word Milo had expected to put to her, and he wanted desperately to be able to make it disappear again somehow. “Yeah,” was all he said aloud. “They’ve got some shelters there too, that I saw. And food. Maybe even some fish.”

Kida’s lips twitched, and he hoped it was a ghost of a smile.

“Be good to have some food that we recognise again,” Milo added, shifting his hand so that he could squeeze her fingers. “No more of that strangely coloured stuff.”

“You should taste food cooked over a driftwood fire,” said Kida, voice distant and wistful. She tucked the pendant down her top, out of sight, and nodded towards the door. Milo allowed himself to be led, grateful to feel the anger fading from her and to no longer be looking at the wreckage of the room.

He shrugged, and regretted it as, even barely moving, his shoulder cramped with pain. “I should try fish,” he said, covering the hiss of pain. “We only get the occasional tin of it in District Twelve.”

Kida looked at him in surprise as they walked down the sand dune again, feet slipping into hollows with each step. Walking on sand felt strange. “You know, that sounds so strange to me. And I guess you’ve never eaten seaweed.”

“I didn’t know that you could.” The words hurt to say, but they were easier than trying to talk about what he knew was in both of their minds. The fires of the beach pricked back into sight, and Milo caught sight of the silhouette of Klucky waiting for them. “I should try it sometime.”

“Not tonight.” 

Now those words were easy to agree to. He wanted nothing more than sleep; the gnaw of hunger in his belly was hardly a new thing. It was the pain that was, the exhaustion, the wish that he could do something to help the horror that Kida had clearly returned to.

“Not tonight,” he echoed, and squeezed her hand. No longer waiting for the anthem and the crest in the sky, they at least had time. And now, he sensed, it was the Districts turning their gaze against the Capitol, rather than waiting for the blows to fall.


	9. Beseiging

It was only the next day, wearing dry clothes for the first time in about forever and with his wound dressed and arm in a sling, that Milo was released from the disused cannery that had been commandeered into a field hospital. Everyone seemed to know what they were _doing_ , which was disorientating in itself, and he didn't dare ask questions of anyone until he bumped into Marian again.

"Kida's at the HQ," she said, and Milo couldn't help but stare at her with his mouth slightly agape. "Come on. They should let you in."

The HQ turned out to be another abandoned building, this one possibly a house, and seemed to have people constantly going in and out of the doors. Marian nodded to a man in passing then slipped in. The front room was full of boxes, one open to reveal boxes of medicines inside, others closed and printed with terse labels about where they were supposed to have been sent. And more people, still, with different clothing and accents but all wearing some sort of bright blue, whether it be a sash or belt or just a band around their upper arms.

Milo allowed himself to be led through into the rear room of the building. A table dominated the space, with a map -- a modern one, in bright colours, such that Milo had never actually seen before -- spread out across it. In the far corner, two people were working with a large computer bank and an old-fashioned radio set, side by side.

He shouldn't have been surprised that Kida was standing right at the table, arguing with one of the other figures. As Milo frowned, she gestured animatedly to the southern reaches of the map.

"Dahnhahn, District Eleven has ever been one of the more troubled regions. Where the Capitol cannot control them by starvation," she jabbed a finger at the paper, "they do so with guns instead. They have the best food supplies and the largest population outside of the Capitol. We cannot consider leaving them until the end."

"We do not have the numbers for an assault on District Four," he replied.

" _We_ do not need the numbers. The _people_ of District Eleven will--" Kida stopped as she caught sight of Milo, still standing in the doorway looking faintly bewildered. From this distance, he could see the shadows beneath her eyes were deeper than ever, and the scratches on her face had a raw look about them. “Milo. I am sorry, I did not realise you would be up.”

“And who are you?” the man barked. He was tall, heavy-set, with a heavily-greyed beard trimmed short, and wore a bright blue sleeveless shirt. He folded his arms across his chest.

Ah. Milo realised that he was probably the one being addressed. “My name’s Milo Thatch, ah, sir,” he added, since that was rarely a bad idea. “I’m... from the Arena.”

“One of my allies,” said Kida, shooting the man a sharp glance. He actually flinched slightly, Milo was shocked to see. “He is welcome here.”

Well, it was glad to hear someone actually say that. Milo risked a glance over to the young woman at the radio, working with the dials, and the young man tapping away at the keys of the computer. Code flashed across the screen, but since he’d never actually touched a computer he didn’t have a clue what that actually meant.

Shaking her head, Kida walked around the table. “We are a food-producing District, yes, but we cannot supply others without a route north and we cannot supply everyone. We will need District Eleven if we are to get through the winter, preferably before harvest if the Capitol is to not simply transport it elsewhere.”

“We get District Five fully supported and controlled, we block the route from the Capitol to District Eleven,” the man who had been addressed as Dahnhahn replied. “They won’t be able to use the route through two while the infighting is still going on--”

“Assumptions.” Kida cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Something which we cannot count on. And District Five was one of those who tried to rise up four years ago. They are in a better position-”

“Now who is the one making the assumptions?” He demanded. “District Five lost people and supplies both, and the Peacekeepers are thicker in the streets than ever.” He shook his head. “I thank you for what you have done, Kida Nedakh, but you have not been involved in the planning of this in the way that I have. I—”

“Have waited half your life,” said Kida bitterly. “So you have said, so many have said. And I have lived for it my whole life.”

“You were the figurehead,” said Dahnhahn. “You have done your part. Let others of us do ours.”

Kida glared at him, muscle twitching as she clenched her jaw, then she whirled away from him and stormed towards the doorway. The other woman at the table, older and slender, went to stop her, but Kida shook her away.

“I will be with the convoy heading to the Town,” she called over her shoulder. “When the decision is made as to where the front is headed, I will know.”

She bumped into Milo’s shoulder as she left the room – fortunately, not the one that was now stitched and bandaged together. It still jolted him enough to hurt, though, and he sucked in his breath through his teeth until the flares down his arm faded. Turning, he hurried after Kida, whose hands were in fists at her sides as she strode across the muddy ground.

“Kida.” She didn’t seem to notice as he jogged to catch up. “Kida!”

Finally, his voice seemed to break through, and Kida slowed enough for Milo to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with her. Her expression was pained, and she wrapped one arm across her ribs. “Sorry,” she said quietly.

“I... okay, I have no idea what’s going on,” Milo admitted. “This is what you meant when you talked about rebellion, right?”

She nodded. “Everyone knows that there we rebelled before, and that we might again. The moment that I asked you, you agreed, didn’t you?” Her eyes almost pleaded with him, though he barely wanted to apply the word to her, and he nodded quickly. “People want to be free of Yen Sid and what he has made of the Capitol. Sometimes I barely understand why they did not.”

Milo held his tongue, though he knew that he had seen at least some of the reasons. Hunger, hardship, despair. It was hard to really think about rebellion when you were distracted by the thought of food on your table. But the idea never really went away.

“It has always been _when_ , not _if_ ,” Kida continued. “ _That_ was why I became a Career, why I volunteered. To give the message, on the mandatory viewings. _Ab Extra, Salus_.”

“From... outside?” Milo guessed. “Salve? Salvation?”

“From beyond, salvation,” she said, nodding again. Her steps had led them through the small village to the warehouse by the old train station. “It meant that no District could stand alone. We need each other, to offer help. And, of course, Atlantis.”

That made him frown, head snapping round. “Atlantis?”

“That... is a rather longer story.”

 

 

It was fascinating. That was the only word for it. Milo struggled to keep from interrupting too much as Kida explained how a few District Four sailors had seen and made contact with islands to the south, where the Capitol or Peacekeepers did not dare sail. How Atlantean had developed to ensure that the Peacekeepers could not understand them. How hope had sparked and spread, and how victors – not least Kida’s father – had spread the word from District to District until there were people who had ideas and plans and the drive to rebel against the Capitol.

“And the people will,” said Kida, breathless. It had bought light back into her eyes as she explained, animated her. “So many people want to be free already. It is just a matter of letting them know they can be.”

“Then what now?” Milo asked. For a moment, Kida’s smile faded, and she looked at the train station for a long while.

“That was what I was arguing with Dahnhahn. District Four started in the south, and moved north. The train line was torn up at the north and south borders, to stop the Peacekeepers from moving. The Peacekeeper HQ in the Town is the current problem.”

It was strange how easy it was to hear the words fall from Kida’s lips. Kida rubbed her ribs cautiously, but her eyes stayed on the station. As Milo looked round again, he saw men with rifles over their shoulders and batons at their hips, and felt the instinctive flinch and desire to move away. But these men were not Peacekeepers; they wore blue sashes at their waists and did not have the mask-like helmets.

“I’m going to the Town,” Kida said.

There was an edge in her voice. “Are you sure... that you want to?” It felt ridiculous to not say it in so many words, not ask whether she wanted to go to the place where her grandfather died, but somehow he could not form the words.

“I need to.”

Milo adjusted his sling. The nurse who had dressed his wound had said that he was lucky, and that it was more of a slash than a penetrating wound. It had still hurt, but she assured him that it would heal within a few months and he would have no permanent damage from it. Capitol medicine would have been faster, but they didn’t have access to those sort of regenerative drugs and technologies.

What he wanted to say was, _I’m coming too_ , but saying things like that still in a sling and with the nurses telling him to watch for a concussion felt ridiculous. “Are they controlling who enters the Town?”

“Not that they told me.” Kida shrugged. “Nobody has tried to stop me going.” Something hung in the air between them, but Milo didn’t want to hazard a guess at what it was. “It’s only a few hours’ walk, and there is another group walking out tomorrow.”

Her eyes were haunted, and she raised her hand to toy with the pendant at her neck again. She must have found a new cord some time during the night. Then the moment passed, and she shook her head. “Come on, let’s go to the cantina. I should speak you a few words of Atlantean, just in case.”

 

 

Milo was almost surprised when nobody objected to him leaving with the group that marching to the Town. It was mostly made up of peopled carrying weapons, some of them – including Kida – wearing bulletproof vests as well. Robin and John appeared to be going simply because Kida was, however, and Marian as well.

Cinderella stayed, with Esmeralda and Sweet. Before he left, Milo gave her a one-armed hug goodbye, and clung a little longer than he meant to just because they were all that there was of District Twelve here.

“I’ll see you again soon,” she whispered in his ear, arms around his neck.

“Yeah,” Milo replied. He did his hardest to believe it. “Yeah, we will.”

It was insane. He had barely escaped the Arena, and Kida had said that there was still fighting of some sort around the Town, but he was going there willingly. He hoped that his grandfather would forgive him for effectively volunteering himself. Maybe there was something in the water in District Four.

 

Even having seen what happened when they arrived at the beach, Milo was not prepared for how everyone would _recognise_ Kida. Two or three times, they passed small groups walking in the opposite direction to them on the road, and they all nodded greetings as they passed. When they reached the Town itself, it was more marked, and there were even scattered outbreaks of cheering.

The fight was mostly over by the time that they arrived, which still did not seem to improve Kida’s mood. She still had her spear in hand, though the feathers and ribbon on the end had been removed. “They were for the Arena, for show, anyway,” Kida had said bitterly.

As they approached the Peacekeeper HQ, news must have spread. A woman came jogging over to them, wearing dark grey with a blue sash just peeking out from beneath her body armour and a stolen Peacekeeper helmet with a sloppy blue Ʌ on the side.

“Gentlemen, ladies,” she nodded to the group, then her eyes settled on Kida. “Ms. Nedakh. We heard a rumour you were headed in from the coast.”

“What’s going on?” said John. “We heard there was fighting going on out here.” He jerked his head towards the rifle that he carried. “Why we bought these along.”

“There was. The remaining Peacekeepers pulled back into their HQ, inside the walls. They’ve got a generator in there, and their supplies. Proving pretty hard to get them out. Name’s Roknah.”

Milo did not miss the fact that Kida stepped forward to shake the woman’s hand first. “Kahrell’s sister, right?”

Roknah nodded. “Your father was her Mentor. But you probably knew that.”

A ghost of a smile went across Kida’s face. “My grandfather mentioned it. I know that we have her to thank for talking to people in other districts.” She introduced the other members of the group one by one, adding that Robin and John were originally from District Eight and ending with, “and Milo, an ally of mine from the Arena,” when Roknah was raising an eyebrow in Milo’s direction.

“How many are in there?” asked Robin.

“There’s forty-two Peacekeepers unaccounted for, but it’s possible that some of them have gotten north of the line,” said Roknah. “Lads, head that way if you’ve got ammo that you can spare. Triton – ex-Peacekeepr, settled here again after he’d done his four tours – is taking the lead on that side. We’re waiting on this before we can really push north, unfortunately. Can’t risk leaving this many Peacekeepers behind the line.”

Most of the rest of the group peeled off to go as Roknah pointed, Robin giving a half-salute as he did so. Milo hesitated for a moment, until Kida gave him a hopeful look and he stayed at her side instead. “Do we have an HQ in place?”

“This way.”

The Peacekeeper HQ in District Four looked almost identical to the one in District Twelve, right down to the square outside and the gallows at the centre of it. Now, though, there were pockmarks from bullets in the paving stones, and a great bloody sweep down the steps from the front gate. The screen at the south end of the square had been shattered, shards of glass littering the ground.

“Have you got control of the screens?” Milo blurted out. Roknah turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “It would be good for communicating, surely.”

“We cut the lines, to make sure the Capitol didn’t use the cameras built into them,” said Roknah. “Haven’t considered booting them back up again.”

Kida looked from the screen to the walls of the Peacekeeper HQ and back again. “They’d be able to see.”

“It’d be even better if you could get the inside screens,” added Milo. “Get a message to them. Peacekeepers are...” he started to feel uncomfortable with Roknah and Kida’s eyes fixed on him, but kept going. “They’re mostly District Two, right? They suffer from the Capitol as well.”

“District Two’s in civil war over whether or not they should rebel,” said Roknah dubiously.

“But some of them do want to,” Kida replied. “That may be just enough to sway it in our favour. If they will surrender without fighting, it can only be for the best.”

 

 

“Pity we’re a distance from Three,” said Aquata. She wore blue overalls, had white pins in her hair, and reminded Milo more than a little of Audrey. “It’d be good if we had contacts from them to help us with the transmissions. But they’re probably going to be one of the last Districts that we get to.”

“If you cut out that circuit...” Milo pointed to a jump that they could make. “Would that cut their control?”

Aquata wrinkled her nose. “Not too sure. Should take out at least some of their access, though. We aren’t going to need long for the broadcast, are we?”

“They’re already planning it.” If he sat up on his heels, Milo could see over to the front room, where Kida was trying to drag a brush through her hair and holding a high-speed discussion with Roknah and Pleakley, District Four’s mayor. “They’re planning to do it live, I think.”

“I’ll let them handle that,” said Aquata, shrugging. “This part is easier, in my opinion.”

“You could be right there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The names Dahnhahn, Roknah and Kahrell are taken from _Atlantis: A Traveler's Guide to the Lost City_ , a Disney-published but not particularly canonical book about the city of Atlantis in the years following the film setting. So quasi-canonical 'Atlantean' names.


End file.
